An Israeli firm accused of supplying spyware to governments has been linked to a list of 50,000 smartphone numbers, including those of activists, journalists, business executives and politicians around the world, according to reports Sunday.

Cuba’s President Miguel Diaz-Canel on Saturday denounced what he said was a false narrative over unrest on the Caribbean island, as the Communist regime vigorously pushed back against suggestions of historically widespread discontent.

President Joe Biden on Saturday vowed to preserve a program that protects from deportation hundreds of thousands of immigrants brought to the United States as children, promising to appeal a judge’s “deeply disappointing” ruling invalidating it and urging Congress to provide them a path to citizenship.

1947 - Burma’s effective prime minister and independence leader U Aung San was assassinated along with six other ministers.

A top Chinese official said yesterday that political tensions between Beijing and Australia were not behind a Unesco recommendation to place the Great Barrier Reef on its endangered list.

Authorities in Indian-controlled Kashmir on Friday said there is no ban on the sacrifice of animals during the upcoming Islamic Eid al-Adha holiday, a day after the government asked law enforcers to stop the sacrifice of cows, calves, camels and other animals.

The United States on Saturday accused Tehran of an “outrageous” effort to deflect blame for the impasse in Iran nuclear talks and denied that any agreement had been reached on a prisoner swap.

President Bashar al-Assad took the oath of office for a fourth term in war-ravaged Syria on Saturday, after officially winning 95 percent of the vote in an election dismissed abroad.

The dragging corruption trial of South Africa’s jailed ex-president Jacob Zuma resumes today despite deadly violence that swept the nation after his imprisonment in an unrelated case. Zuma faces 16 charges of fraud,

The Taliban’s supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada yesterday said he “strenuously favours” a political settlement to the conflict in Afghanistan even as the hardline Islamist movement has launched a sweeping offensive across the nation.

With wildfires in the drought-hit western United States and Canada continuing to scorch vast areas, firefighting resources are being severely stretched, authorities said Saturday.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel described the flooding that has devastated parts of Europe as “terrifying” on Sunday after the death toll across the region rose to 188 and a district of Bavaria was battered by the extreme weather.

Eight Bangladeshi undergraduate students have been selected to participate in the US State Department-funded Community College Initiative (CCI) Program.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson will spend 10 days self-isolating after contact with a confirmed coronavirus case, his office said Sunday — reversing an earlier announcement that he would not have to quarantine.

The death toll in devastating flooding in western Germany and Belgium rose to at least 170 on Saturday after burst rivers and flash floods this week collapsed houses and ripped up roads and power lines.

Some fans and players scrambled for cover at a professional baseball game in Washington on Saturday night as the sound of gunfire filled the stadium, and police later said four people had been shot outside.

Representatives of the Afghan government and the Taliban met in Doha for talks yesterday, AFP correspondents said, as violence rages in the country with foreign forces almost entirely withdrawn. 

The World Health Organization said on Friday that the second stage of an investigation into the origins of Covid-19 should include further studies in China and lab audits. 

US President Joe Biden on Friday said social media platforms like Facebook “are killing people” for allowing misinformation about coronavirus vaccines to be posted on its platform, as the administration continued criticizing the company. 

Pilgrims began arriving in the holy city of Makkah yesterday for the second downsized hajj staged during the coronavirus pandemic, circling Islam’s holiest site in masks and on distanced paths.