Israel’s military urged residents of more than 20 towns in south Lebanon to evacuate their homes immediately yesterday as it pressed on with incursions after suffering its worst losses in a year of fighting the Iran-backed armed group Hezbollah.

Britain yesterday said it would give up sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius but under what US President Joe Biden called a “historic agreement” will keep its strategic joint military base with the United States on Diego Garcia.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned Hezbollah leader Syyed Hassan Nasrallah to flee Lebanon days before he was killed in an Israeli strike and is now deeply worried about Israeli infiltration of senior government ranks in Tehran, three Iranian sources said.

Food supplies to Gaza have fallen sharply in recent weeks because Israeli authorities have introduced a new customs rule on some humanitarian aid and are separately scaling down deliveries organized by businesses, people involved in getting goods to the territory told Reuters.

The prosecution of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange was “politically motivated” and had a “chilling” effect on the whole media landscape, the parliamentary arm of pan-European rights body the Council of Europe said on Wednesday.

India’s Supreme Court yesterday asked authorities to report back within a week on what they were doing to stop farmers from burning crop residue as smog began to pollute the air in the capital Delhi and surrounding regions, local media reported.

Donald Trump launched a “private criminal effort” to subvert the 2020 US election and should not be shielded by presidential immunity, Special Counsel Jack Smith said in a court filing unsealed on Wednesday.

Bhutan has signed a deal with India’s Reliance Group to build 1,270 megawatts’ worth of renewable electricity projects in the Himalayan nation as it seeks to become an energy-exporting powerhouse.

The World Health Organization yesterday announced a global plan to battle dengue and other diseases carried by mosquitos as they spread faster and further amid climate change.

Banning the sale of tobacco to people born between 2006 and 2010 could prevent around 1.2 million deaths from lung cancer by the end of the century, said a modelling study released yesterday.

Soldiers chasing suspicious vehicles on a highway in Mexico opened fire and killed six migrants, the defense ministry said Wednesday.

Tanzania suspended the online operations of a leading newspaper yesterday after it released cartoons featuring the president and referencing recent abductions and killings of dissidents.

The Israeli military today told residents in more than 20 villages and a city in southern Lebanon to evacuate, the latest in a series of calls to relocate issued by the army as it targets Hezbollah positions

The Israeli military today said a strike three months ago killed three senior Hamas leaders in Gaza, where the army has been battling the Palestinian militants for nearly a year

Nine people died today after a fire ripped through a hospital in southern Taiwan

Flights resumed at a regional Japanese airport Thursday after an unexploded World War II US bomb blew up less than a minute after a passenger jet taxied past.

A senior adviser to Vice President Kamala Harris met American Muslim and Arab leaders on Wednesday as Harris' presidential campaign seeks to win back voters angry at U.S. support for Israel's wars in Gaza and Lebanon.

Krathon was packing sustained wind speeds of 126 kilometres (78 miles) per hour and gusts of up to 162 kph just before reaching the southern seaport city of Kaohsiung, according to the Central Weather Administration (CWA).

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned Hezbollah leader Syyed Hassan Nasrallah to flee Lebanon days before he was killed in an Israeli strike and is now deeply worried about Israeli infiltration of senior government ranks in Tehran, three Iranian sources said.

The 44-year-old founded the Youth Against Settlements group, which campaigns against the proliferation of Jewish settlements in the territory -- communities widely regarded as illegal under international law.