WORLD

International Monetary Fund chief Kristalina Georgieva on Thursday drew attention to the suffering in Yemen and Sudan, both plagued by civil wars and often overshadowed by the plight of other countries.

She has been banned from taking part in the July presidential election, but Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado keeps campaigning, refusing to settle for a backup plan.

Birds sang and planes rumbled overhead as Abdeljabbar al-Arja dug the remains of his dead neighbours from the rubble in Gaza.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Thursday painted a dark picture of the situation in the Middle East, warning that spiraling tensions over the war in Gaza and Iran's attack on Israel could devolve into a "full-scale regional conflict."

The United States and Britain announced widespread sanctions against Iran's military drone program on Thursday, in response to its weekend attack against Israel.

Dubai's airport, one of the world's busiest, witnessed major disruption for the third day in a row on Thursday after the heaviest rains on record drenched the desert United Arab Emirates.

His writing anticipated a Hamas attack on Israeli kibbutzim and an Iranian strike from the skies, but former Mossad spy turned thriller author Mishka Ben-David is now concerned about what lies ahead.

Russia said Thursday that fresh US aid for Ukraine will not change the dynamics on the battlefield, as Washington gears up for a crucial weekend vote on long-stalled military funding for Kyiv.

On Day 195 of the war in Gaza, a key intelligence officer within Hamas was killed by the Israeli army as the world moves to sanction Iran for its aerial attacks toward Israel over the weekend that shook the global community.

Hundreds of Gazans found rare respite at the beach this week from more than six months of traumatising Israeli bombardments in the Palestinian territory.

The pair, identified only as Dieter S. and Alexander J., were arrested in Bayreuth in the southeastern state of Bavaria on Wednesday, federal prosecutors said in a statement.

Rescuers were removing mountains of rubble on Thursday from the site of a lethal Russian missile strike on Ukraine's historic city of Chernigiv, where at least 18 people were killed in an attack that has prompted fresh pleas for allies to boost Kyiv's overstretched air defense systems.

Social media platform X said Thursday it would work with Pakistan's government "to understand its concerns" after authorities insisted an ongoing two-month ban was based on security grounds.

The European Union's economy is falling further behind China and the United States, a major headache that will dominate leaders' talks on Thursday as they discuss how to stem the bloc's economic decline and bounce back.

Donald Trump's unprecedented criminal trial resumes Thursday in New York with the judge seeking to complete jury selection and kick off arguments in the politically explosive case early next week.

The World Bank has significantly scaled up its ambition to connect Africans to the electricity grid by 2030, from 100 million to more than 250 million, the Bank's president said Wednesday.

Vote counting was under way Thursday in the South Pacific's Solomon Islands, a contest keenly watched from afar as China's efforts to stamp its mark on the region are tested.

A leading contender to become the Solomon Islands' next prime minister has vowed to rip up a security pact with China, as the Pacific nation began counting votes Thursday in a pivotal general election.

Bayern Munich striker Harry Kane looked forward to the Champions League semi-final meeting with England teammate Jude Bellingham's Real Madrid, saying it was "why we moved abroad."

EU leaders were Wednesday weighing the bloc's response to suspicions of Russian meddling ahead of June elections in the bloc, with calls for new sanctions to target "malign activities" by Moscow.

The new draft of the global pandemic agreement has been released to countries ahead of Thursday's deadline, with a more streamlined take on how the world should handle future pandemics.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Wednesday he would host a leader of Palestinian militant group Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, in Turkey this weekend.

A Pakistan High Court ordered the government on Wednesday to restore access to social media platform X within a week, a lawyer said, after more than two months of disruptions.

Netflix on Wednesday released a sneak peek of its TV series adaptation of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's "One Hundred Years of Solitude," coinciding with the tenth anniversary of the Nobel Prize-winning author's death.

President Joe Biden urged Republicans on Wednesday to drop opposition to a long-delayed military aid package for Ukraine and Israel, saying the US allies are in a "pivotal" moment of conflicts against Russia and Iran.

Shares in Dutch tech giant ASML, which supplies chip-making machines to the semiconductor industry, slumped Wednesday after the firm reported a drop in net profits and orders amid a high-tech trade spat between China and the West.

French authorities on Wednesday evicted hundreds of migrants from a squat in a southern suburb of Paris with just 100 days to go until the Olympics, encouraging them to board buses to other parts of France.

Tesla will ask its shareholders in June to ratify a multi-billion-dollar 2018 pay package for CEO Elon Musk that was squashed by a US court earlier this year.

Swiss lawmakers on Wednesday voted in favour of banning the display of extremist and racist symbols, starting with those of a Nazi nature.