International

Iran on Wednesday rejected as “baseless” French President Emmanuel Macron’s remarks claiming Tehran was the main strategic and security challenge in the Middle East. Foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei described the comments as “baseless, contradictory, and speculative,” and called for France “to reconsider its non-constructive approaches to peace and stability” in the region.

At least 95 people have been confirmed dead and 130 are injured after a major earthquake struck the mountainous Tibet region on Tuesday morning, Chinese state media say. The earthquake that hit Tibet’s holy Shigatse city around 09:00 local time (01:00 GMT) had a magnitude of 7.1 and a depth of 10 kilometres (six miles), according to data from the ...

Syria’s new foreign minister Asaad al-Shaibani landed in the United Arab Emirates Monday on his first visit to the country since rebels toppled president Bashar al-Assad last month, official news agency SANA said, reports AFP. “Shaibani, accompanied by defense minister Murhaf Abu Qasra and intelligence chief Anas Khattab arrive in the United Arab Emirates,” SANA said, a day after they ...

At least eight people were killed and 15 others were wounded after a fire broke out at a vegetable market in China’s northern province of Hebei, state television CCTV said on Saturday. Authorities were investigating the cause of the fire in the city of Zhangjiakou, which was doused just over an hour after it broke out at about 8:40AM, the ...

Former Estonian president Arnold Ruutel, seen as one of the fathers of the country’s return to independence in 1991, has died at the age of 96, the president’s office said overnight. Ruutel was a communist party official at the end of the 1980s just as the Soviet Union was beginning to unravel, before becoming a protagonist in the Baltic country’s ...

Auckland was the first major city to welcome 2025 with thousands of revellers counting down to the New Year and cheering at colourful fireworks launched from New Zealand’s tallest structure, the Sky Tower, and a spectacular downtown light show. Countries in the South Pacific are the first to ring in the New Year with midnight in New Zealand striking 18 ...

Jimmy Carter, the 100-year-old former US president and Nobel peace laureate who rose from humble beginnings in rural Georgia to lead the nation from 1977 to 1981, has died, his nonprofit foundation said Sunday. Carter had been in hospice care since mid-February 2023 at his home in Plains, Georgia — the same small town where he was born and once ...

At least 120 people were killed when an airliner landed without wheels, veering off the runway and erupting in a fireball as it slammed into a wall at South Korea’s Muan International Airport on Sunday, the national fire agency said. Jeju Air flight 7C2216, arriving from the Thai capital Bangkok with 181 people on board, was attempting to land shortly ...

South Korea’s parliament impeached acting President Han Duck-soo on Friday, less than two weeks after suspending President Yoon Suk Yeol’s powers over his short-lived declaration of martial law, plunging the country deeper into political chaos, reports Reuters. The impeachment of Han, the acting president since Yoon was impeached on Dec. 14 for declaring martial law on Dec. 3, has pushed ...

More than 1,500 prisoners escaped from a Maputo prison Wednesday, taking advantage of the third day of unrest triggered by the controversial confirmation of the long-ruling Frelimo party as the winner of recent elections. A total of 1,534 detainees escaped the high-security prison located about 15 kilometres (nine miles) from the capital, said national police chief Bernardino Rafael at a ...