US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will travel next week to India, an important partner in US efforts to counter China and in vaccine diplomacy that is hobbled by its own Covid-19 crisis.

Australia yesterday avoided having the Great Barrier Reef listed as an endangered world heritage site by UNESCO, despite extensive climate change-fuelled damage to the ecosystem’s corals. 

The United States imposed sanctions on Cuba’s defense minister and a special forces unit Thursday for repressing peaceful protests, a step President Joe Biden warned is “just the beginning” of punitive measures against Havana.

The Taliban’s claim to hold 90 percent of Afghanistan’s borders is an “absolute lie”, the defence ministry said yesterday, insisting government forces were in control of the country’s frontiers.

Russia managed to disconnect itself from the global internet during tests in June and July, the RBC daily reported on Thursday, citing documents from the working group tasked with improving Russia’s internet security.

Former UN rights chief Navi Pillay will lead the United Nations’ open-ended inquiry into “systematic” abuses in Israel and the Palestinian territories, it was announced on Thursday.

We will probably have another variant arrive during the winter. … The big challenge for the next couple of years will be how are we going to co-exist, with two worlds: countries that are vaccinated and those that are not.

Indian PM Narendra Modi’s main political rival Rahul Gandhi yesterday demanded an inquiry into the Pegasus spyware scandal, accusing the government of “treason”, according to an AFP report.

Pallbearers in military attire carried late Haitian President Jovenel Moise's body in a closed wooden coffin as his funeral got underway on Friday, two weeks after he was shot dead at home in an assassination still shrouded in mystery.

About 100 of the 613 US athletes descending on Tokyo for the Olympics are unvaccinated, the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee’s medical chief said hours before Friday night’s opening ceremony.

Russia is going ahead with plans to supply Myanmar with Su-30 fighter jets and Yak-130 training aircraft, Interfax news agency quoted Dmitry Shugayev, head of Russia's military cooperation agency, as saying on Friday.

French President Emmanuel Macron has changed his phone and phone number in light of the Pegasus spyware case, a presidency official said on Thursday, in one of the first concrete actions announced in relation to the scandal.

Inspired by her late father's career, Mona decided to join the military and the first group of Saudi women soldiers to work in Islam's holiest sites, where they are helping secure the haj annual pilgrimage.

Tunisia’s government stumbled deeper into crisis over its handling of the coronavirus pandemic, after premier Hichem Mechichi fired the health minister amid skyrocketing cases in the North African country.

Haiti’s government installed a new prime minister, while officials mourned assassinated President Jovenel Moïse and arrested at least three police officers implicated in his killing.

Two shootings in downtown Milwaukee as crowds celebrated the Milwaukee Bucks first NBA championship in 50 years left three people wounded, police said.

US life expectancy fell by a year and a half in 2020, the largest one-year decline since World War II, public health officials said. 

The United States on Tuesday carried out an air strike against al Shabaab militants in Somalia, the first strike in the country since President Joe Biden came into office.

Jason Lilley was a special operations forces Marine Raider who fought in multiple battles in Iraq and Afghanistan during America's longest war.

Britain said it would permanently deploy two warships in Asian waters after its Queen Elizabeth aircraft carrier and escort ships sail to Japan in September through seas where China is vying for influence with the United States and Japan.