International news

Kuwait's Foreign Minister Sheikh Ahmad Nasser Al-Mohammad Al-Sabah will visit Beirut on Saturday, in the first such visit by a senior Gulf official since a diplomatic spat last year.

Germany's centre-right Christian Democrats (CDU) on Saturday elected arch-conservative Friedrich Merz, their party leader, to follow the more centrist Armin Laschet.

Berlin is ruling out arms deliveries to Ukraine in the standoff with Russia for now, a few days after Britain started supplying Kyiv with anti-tank weapons.

U.S. President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida agreed to boost cooperation on pressing economic and security issues, including China, North Korea's missiles and Russia's threat to Ukraine.

The Haitian judge overseeing the investigation into the July assassination of President Jovenel Moise said in a letter on Friday he had withdrawn from the case, deepening the disarray in an ongoing probe of the brazen crime.

The World Bank has approved a loan of $750 million to South Africa linked to COVID-19, aiming to help protect the poor and support economic recovery from the pandemic, the National Treasury said on Friday.

India's capital is set to lift a weekend curfew and allow private offices to be partially staffed after a fall in new COVID-19 infections, a city government official said on Friday.

Pakistan reported on Friday over 7,000 COVID-19 cases in a single day, its highest daily number of infections since the pandemic began, as the south Asian nation imposes new restrictions to curb the fast-spreading Omicron variant.

As aid trickles into the South Pacific nation of Tonga, devastated by a volcanic eruption and tsunami, an Australian aid flight was forced to return to base due to a positive COVID-19 case onboard, a defence official said on Friday.

Four Belarusian government officials have been charged in the United States with aircraft piracy for diverting a Ryanair flight last May to arrest a dissident Belarusian journalist who was on board, U.S. prosecutors said on Thursday.

Nearly 30 generic drugmakers in Asia, Africa and the Middle East will make cheap versions of Merck & Co's COVID-19 pill, under a landmark UN-backed deal to give poorer nations wider access to the drug.

A bomb blast ripped through a crowded market in eastern Pakistan on Thursday, killing three people and wounding over 20.

An aid flight from New Zealand carrying humanitarian supplies arrived in Tonga on Thursday, five days after the South Pacific island nation was hit by a volcanic eruption and tsunami that devastated communities and spoiled most of its drinking water.

The pandemic has blocked Novak Djokovic's march to tennis history, so the 34-year-old may be pinning his hopes on a cure for COVID to get his hands on another glorious grand slam before time runs out.

North Korea will bolster its defences against the United States and consider resuming "all temporally-suspended activities", state news agency KCNA said on Thursday, an apparent reference to a self-imposed moratorium on tests of nuclear weapons and long-range missiles.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said on Thursday that restrictions will be tightened across the country if there is a community transmission of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus but she ruled out lockdowns.

Austria's conservative-led government said on Thursday it was introducing a national lottery to encourage holdouts to get vaccinated against the coronavirus, hours before parliament was due to pass a bill introducing a national vaccine mandate.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced the end of COVID-19 measures introduced to curb the rapid spread of the Omicron variant in England as he looks to live with the virus after a peak in cases.

Two New Zealand navy vessels carrying disaster relief will arrive in Tonga on Friday, the first international supplies to reach the Pacific island nation reeling from a volcanic eruption and tsunami.

A mass hamster cull in Hong Kong sparked fears among animal welfare groups on Wednesday that panicky people would abandon their pets after 11 of the rodents from one petshop in the city tested positive for COVID-19.

North Korea fired tactical guided missiles on Monday, state media KCNA said on Tuesday, the latest in a series of recent tests that highlighted its evolving missile programmes amid stalled denuclearisation talks.

Tonga's small outer islands suffered extensive damage from a massive volcanic eruption and tsunami, a Tongan diplomat said on Tuesday, raising fears of more deaths and injuries.

Hong Kong police said they have arrested and charged two former flight attendants over allegations they broke the city's coronavirus rules.

A winter snowstorm creeping up the East Coast of the United States into Canada on Monday was expected to dump more than two feet (60 cm) of snow in some areas, grounding planes and stranding motorists.

A gunman who took four people hostage at a Dallas-area synagogue and was himself killed as federal agents stormed the temple was identified on Sunday as a British citizen, while police in England said they had detained two teenagers for questioning in the investigation.

North Korea fired two suspected short-range ballistic missiles (SRBM) on Monday from an airport in its capital city of Pyongyang, South Korea's military reported, the fourth test this month to demonstrate its expanding missile arsenal.

Australia and New Zealand sent surveillance flights on Monday to assess damage in Tonga, isolated from the rest of the world after the eruption of a volcano that triggered a tsunami and blanketed the Pacific island with ash.

An FBI Hostage Rescue Team stormed a synagogue in Colleyville, Texas on Saturday night to free three remaining hostages of a gunman who had disrupted a religious service and began a standoff with police more than 10 hours earlier.

Tsunami-hit Tonga remained largely uncontactable on Sunday with telephone and internet links severed, leaving relatives in faraway New Zealand praying for their families on the Pacific islands as casualty reports had yet to come through.

A North Korean cargo train pulled into a Chinese border town on Sunday, in what would be the first confirmed crossing since anti-coronavirus border lockdowns began, media reports said.

England's health service said it will expand its COVID-19 booster vaccination programme to include 16- and 17-year-olds from Monday.

Sir Richard Branson, the founder of the Virgin Group, will be boarding Virgin Galactic's VSS Unity and blasting off to space on Sunday.

Singapore is reviewing penalties for violent offences following an outcry over a 12-day prison sentence for a student who strangled his girlfriend until she blacked out.