India today accused Pakistan of endangering civilian lives by keeping its airspace open during drone and missile attacks on multiple Indian cities, allegedly using commercial flights as a shield against counter-strikes

"We will not de-escalate -- with the damages India did on our side, they should take a hit," Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry told media at a briefing

The two countries have fought several wars over Kashmir since 1947

Deadly confrontations between India and Pakistan erupted after an April 22 attack on tourists which killed 26 people

"The helicopter was assigned to conduct a grappling exercise"

The deaths were reported in areas near the heavily militarised border

AFP looks at how the trade row between the world's two economic superpowers is playing out

The Philippines yesterday criticised a “high-risk” manoeuvre by a Chinese vessel near the disputed Scarborough Shoal in a rare incident involving warships from the two navies.

Drones targeted army-held areas of eastern and southern Sudan for a fifth straight day yesterday as paramilitaries kept up their attacks on areas formerly regarded as safe, an army source said.

Turkish authorities yesterday blocked access to the account of Istanbul’s jailed opposition mayor Ekrem Imamoglu on social media platform X, where he has nearly 10 million followers.

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees said yesterday that Israel closed three of its schools in annexed east Jerusalem, months after an Israeli ban on its activities took effect.

Cardinal Robert Prevost was elected in a surprise choice to be the new leader of the Catholic Church on Thursday, taking the name Leo XIV, becoming the first US pontiff

India said "the threat was neutralised ... with kinetic and non-kinetic means"

US billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates intensified his ongoing dispute with Elon Musk, alleging that the Tesla and SpaceX CEO was harming the world’s most vulnerable children by making what Gates described as ill-advised reductions to US development aid.

Blackouts enforced in border districts

India and Pakistan yesterday accused each other of carrying out waves of attacks using drones and missiles, as deadly confrontations between the nuclear-armed foes raised the fear of escalation.

Chinese President Xi Jinping yesterday told Russia’s Vladimir Putin their two countries should be “friends of steel”, as they pledged to boost cooperation to a new level at a time of heightened confrontation with the West.

Cardinal Robert Prevost, a little known missionary from Chicago, was elected in a surprise choice to be the new leader of the Catholic Church yesterday, becoming the first US pope and taking the name Leo XIV.

Dozens of community kitchens in Gaza shut their doors yesterday due to a lack of supplies, closing off a lifeline used by hundreds of thousands of people in a further blow to efforts to combat growing hunger in the enclave.

Russia is undertaking a major factory expansion in remote Siberia to ramp up production of a powerful explosive used in artillery shells and other munitions in the war in Ukraine, a Reuters review of publicly available state documents has found.