Italy should urgently launch a public inquiry into its handling of the Covid-19 pandemic, the Amnesty International rights group said yesterday, as lawmakers in Rome dithered over the issue.

European leaders heaped praise on German Chancellor Angela Merkel yesterday as she attended what is likely her last EU summit after a 16-year reign heavily influencing the bloc through major ups and downs. 

Mali’s government has denied that it plans to negotiate with jihadists, walking back an earlier statement from its religion ministry saying that it would do so.

Britain’s Queen Elizabeth, 95, was resting yesterday and undertaking light duties after she spent a night in hospital for the first time in years for what Buckingham Palace termed “preliminary investigations”.

Ethiopia yesterday launched fresh air strikes on the capital of its war-hit Tigray region, the fourth day this week the city has been targeted, a government spokeswoman told AFP.

At least 10 dissidents from the former FARC guerrilla group were killed in clashes with the army in southwest Colombia, a military source said on Thursday.

Forty-three countries have called on China to “ensure full respect for the rule of law” for the Muslim Uyghur community in Xinjiang, in a statement read at the United Nations on Thursday that sparked outrage from Beijing.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Thursday that the United States will soon launch an Amazon-wide regional pact to reduce deforestation, a bid to fight a key factor in climate change.

The Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen yesterday said it had killed at least 92 Huthi rebels in air strikes on two districts in the past 24 hours near the strategic city of Marib. 

US intelligence services said Thursday for the first time that climate change poses wide-ranging threats to the United States’ national security and stability around the world. 

US envoy for Iran Robert Malley was scheduled to meet diplomats from three European powers over the Iranian nuclear crisis as Vienna-based

Fifteen people died and one person was missing after a fire broke out at a Russian explosives factory southeast of Moscow yesterday,

Human remains found in a Florida nature reserve belong to the boyfriend of murdered road tripper Gabby Petito, US authorities said Thursday.

The United States will defend Taiwan if China attacks it, President Joe Biden said, prompting a warning from Beijing yesterday that its determination to take back the democratic island should not be underestimated. 

UN chief Antonio Guterres said Thursday that the current climate situation was “a one-way ticket for disaster” and stressed the need to “avoid a failure” at the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow.

1942 - British and Commonwealth forces led by General Montgomery launched a huge offensive against German and Italian forces under General Rommel at El Alamein, Egypt. 

A vast trove of fossils unearthed in Argentina’s southern Patagonia region is offering the oldest-known evidence that some dinosaurs thrived in a complex and well-organized herd structure, with adults caring for the young and sharing a communal nesting ground.

US actor Alec Baldwin fired a prop gun that killed a cinematographer and wounded the director on a film set in New Mexico, US law enforcement

The United States successfully tested hypersonic missile technology, a new weapons system which is already being deployed by China and Russia, the US Navy said Thursday. 

The carbon-intensive production of plastics is on pace to emit more greenhouse gases than coal-fired power plants within this decade, undercutting global efforts to tackle climate change, a report released on Thursday said.