World Health Organization members yesterday agreed to strengthen the global body at the heart of the pandemic response and give it more secure and flexible funding to better deal with future outbreaks.

Political rivals of Israel’s right-wing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu raced yesterday to forge a diverse coalition to oust the country’s longest-serving leader.

The US spied on top politicians in Europe, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, from 2012 to 2014 with the help of Danish intelligence, Danish and European media reported on Sunday.

The US National Security Agency (NSA) used a partnership with Denmark's foreign intelligence unit to spy on senior officials of neighbouring countries, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Danish state broadcaster DR said.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau asked Sunday that flags at all federal buildings be flown at half-staff to honor more than 200 children whose remains have been found buried at what was once Canada’s largest Indigenous residential school — one of the institutions that held children taken from families across the nation.

Greece reacted angrily on Sunday to a statement by Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu that described members of a Muslim minority in northern Greece as Turkish and that said they were not accorded full civic rights.

The recent crises triggered by economic collapse and the Covid-19 pandemic have shown the world the “innate and fundamental contradictions” of capitalism, said Professor Dr Nguyen Phu Trong, general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Viet Nam (CPV).

Two people were killed and at least 20 injured yesterday when three shooters fired indiscriminately into a crowd outside a concert in Miami, Florida,

Ukraine’s ambassador to Thailand died early yesterday on the southern beach island of Koh Lipe while on vacation with his son, police said, with the cause of death still undetermined.

Hollywood actor Steven Seagal, a long-time admirer of Russian President Vladimir Putin, has joined a pro-Kremlin party, the party said yesterday.

The 46-year old Chinese Zhang Hong has scaled the tallest peak in the world from the Nepal side, becoming the first blind man in Asia and the third in the world to climb Mount Everest.

World leaders yesterday called for more action and inclusion of all countries in the global drive towards a cleaner and greener planet at a climate summit hosted virtually by South Korea.

At least 25 people have died after drinking toxic alcohol in northern India, police said yesterday.

Israeli and Egyptian officials yesterday held talks in both countries aimed at bolstering the Cairo-brokered ceasefire that ended the latest deadly flare-up of violence between the Jewish state and Gaza’s Hamas rulers.

At least six Afghan civilians were killed and several more were wounded when a mortar shell hit a house during a wedding ceremony in northern Kapisa province, security officials said yesterday.

Israeli far-right politician Naftali Bennett was expected to deliver a statement in which he is widely expected to throw his crucial support behind a “government of change” to unseat Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Two people died and an estimated 20 to 25 people were injured in a shooting outside a banquet hall in South Florida, police said.

Sri Lanka launched a criminal probe on Sunday into a massive container ship fire that has swamped the island nation's coast with plastic pollution in an unprecedented marine disaster.

More than 1,000 people rallied on Saturday in Washington in support of Palestinians, calling for an end to US aid to Israel.

Brazilians staged protests against President Jair Bolsonaro's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic in at least 16 cities across the country on Saturday, carrying signs such as "Out with Bolsonaro" and "Impeachment now."