Southeast Asian leaders will try to persuade Myanmar’s junta to end violence and let in aid at a summit today, diplomats said, in the first concerted international effort to ease the crisis in the country.

Merchant vessels and a charity ship searching the Mediterranean for boats carrying migrants has found 10 bodies floating near a capsized rubber boat believed to have had 130 people on board, French humanitarian organisation SOS Mediterranee said.

Amidst an unprecedented surge in Covid-19 cases and a massive shortage of oxygen for critical patients, Prime Minister Narendra Modi yesterday cancelled his scheduled visit to West Bengal today to address assembly election campaign rallies.

A Syrian officer was killed and three soldiers wounded yesterday in strikes launched by Israel after a missile was fired towards a secretive nuclear site in the Jewish state, a monitor said.

Europe endured record heat and rainfall last year while temperatures in Arctic Siberia soared off the charts, the European Union’s climate monitoring service reported yesterday.

The Pakistani Taliban yesterday claimed responsibility for a deadly suicide blast at a luxury hotel hosting the Chinese ambassador in the southwest of the country, as officials raised the death toll to five.

Indonesian warships led the hunt yesterday for a submarine that went missing with 53 crew aboard and only enough oxygen for a few days. An oil spill where the submarine was thought to have submerged early Wednesday pointed to possible damage to its fuel tank, and fanned fears of a deadly disaster.

Russia ordered its top army command to begin returning troops to their permanent bases inside the country from today, saying it had successfully completed a “snap inspection” of forces in its south and west, near the border with Ukraine, the RIA news agency reported.

Pankaj Solanki, a doctor and the director of a small hospital in New Delhi, rushed to an oxygen vendor earlier this week to secure enough cylinders to keep 10 COVID-19 patients on the ICU ward breathing.

Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg warned US lawmakers yesterday that history will hold them accountable for climate catastrophes if they do not stop subsidizing the fossil fuel industry before it is too late.

Food insecurity is rising sharply in Myanmar in the wake of the military coup and deepening financial crisis with millions more people expected to go hungry in coming months, the United Nations said yesterday.

Australia said a decision to cancel two accords between Victoria state and China on the Belt and Road Initiative was taken to ensure consistency in foreign relations and was not aimed at any country.

Australia yesterday announced it would revoke a state government’s deal to join China’s Belt and Road initiative, saying it was inconsistent with the nation’s foreign policy.

Three employees of India’s state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) were abducted yesterday by suspected United Liberation Front for Asom (Independent) militants owing allegiance to their fugitive leader Paresh Barua from an oilfield in Sivsagar district of Assam.

Four states in the Middle East, led by Iran, made “ruthless and chilling” use of the death penalty in 2020 despite an overall decline during the Covid-19 pandemic, dominating the global toll of executions, Amnesty International said yesterday.

President Vladimir Putin yesterday warned the West not to cross Russia’s “red lines”, saying Moscow would respond swiftly and harshly to any provocations in a way that would force those behind them to regret their actions.

The European Parliament and EU member states yesterday agreed a target to cut carbon emissions by at least 55 percent by 2030, in what was called a “game changer” just ahead of a US-hosted climate summit.

US President Joe Biden called systemic racism a “stain on our nation’s soul” in a televised address to the nation Tuesday after a white former police officer was convicted of murdering a Black man during an arrest.

Keen to make the most of a statutory holiday for newlyweds, a couple from Taiwan found a novel way to maximise their honeymoon -- by marrying four times in just over a month.

India’s Border Security Force has sought registration of an FIR against a winged “intruder” from Pakistan--a pigeon--in the northern state of Punjab bordering Pakistan.