International news

Sri Lanka's economy could contract by -3.5 or -4.0% in 2023 after shrinking -11% last year, President Ranil Wickremesinghe said on Saturday.

France has extended mandatory COVID tests for travellers from China until Feb. 15, a government decree published on Saturday showed.

Two Indian air force fighter jets crashed on Saturday after becoming involved in an accident and one pilot was killed, the air force said.

Authorities in New Zealand's biggest city, Auckland, began mopping up on Saturday after torrential rains brought flash flooding and evacuations, with at least two people confirmed dead and two missing in the widespread inundation.

Parts of Western Australia were under a radiation alert on Saturday after authorities said a radioactive capsule used in mining was lost en-route to the state's capital, Perth.

President Joe Biden said he was "outraged" and "deeply pained" after watching a violent encounter between Tyre Nichols, a 29-year-old Black man, and the five police officers charged with murder in his beating death after a traffic stop earlier this month.

The danger of Russian air attacks remained high on Friday, Ukraine's military said, a day after Russian missiles and drones killed at least 11 people in what appeared to be a response to promises by Western allies to supply Ukraine with tanks.

Police in India on Friday charged 10 people with homicide in connection with the collapse of a colonial-era footbridge last year that killed at least 135 people, a top official told Reuters.

The International Criminal Court's decision to allow a probe into the Philippines' drugs war to resume is an "irritant", the country's justice secretary said on Friday, maintaining the ICC has no jurisdiction over the country's affairs.

Advisers to the US Food and Drug Administration unanimously voted in favour of targeting the same coronavirus strain for initial COVID-19 vaccine doses and boosters going forward, but some expressed scepticism about whether all Americans need to receive the shots annually.

Russia pounded Ukraine with missiles during the morning rush hour on Thursday, killing at least one person in Kyiv and damaging critical infrastructure in the Black Sea region of Odesa, officials said.

Dozens of demonstrators gathered outside Lebanon's justice palace on Thursday to protest steps taken this week to hamstring a probe into the deadly 2020 Beirut port blast.

India showcased its military and its cultural diversity in a colourful parade on Thursday at the revamped colonial avenue in New Delhi to mark Republic Day, the anniversary of the day the country's secular Constitution came into effect in 1950.

The US Food and Drug Administration said it is working with the World Health Organisation and foreign regulatory authorities to support an investigation into the source of contaminated cough syrups that have killed more than 300 children in Africa and Asia.

The United States and Germany announced plans to send Ukraine dozens of advanced battle tanks, hailed by Kyiv as a potential turning point in its fight to repel Russia's invasion but denounced by Moscow as an "extremely dangerous" step.

The United States and Germany are poised to boost Ukraine's war effort with the delivery of heavy tanks, sources said, support Russia condemned as a "blatant provocation".

Labour leader Chris Hipkins was sworn in as New Zealand's Prime Minister in a formal ceremony on Wednesday, following the resignation of outgoing Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern last week.

Heavy snow blanketed wide swathes of Japan on Wednesday, snarling traffic, forcing hundreds of flight cancellations and disrupting train travel, leaving at least one person dead.

Documents marked as classified were discovered at former US Vice President Mike Pence's Indiana home last week.

An earthquake of magnitude 5.4 struck Nepal on Tuesday, the European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre said, sending tremors across India's capital New Delhi.

Seven people have been killed in a mass shooting at two locations in the coastal northern California city of Half Moon Bay on Monday.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said personnel changes were being carried out at senior and lower levels, following the most high-profile graft allegations since Russia's invasion that threaten to dampen Western enthusiasm for the Kyiv government.

Pakistan's energy ministry said on Tuesday it had restored its national power grid nearly 24 hours after a breakdown triggered the worst outage in months, highlighting the frailty of the aid-dependant nation's infrastructure.

Jacinda Ardern on Tuesday bid an emotional farewell on her last day as prime minister, speaking of the kindness and empathy New Zealanders have shown her, but said she was ready to be a sister and a mother.

An 11th victim has died from injuries suffered in a weekend shooting rampage at a Los Angeles-area dance hall, as investigators searched for a motive behind one of California's bloodiest outbursts of mass gun violence.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has called for "immediate and concerted action" to protect children from contaminated medicines after a spate of child deaths linked to cough syrups last year.

The judge investigating the August 2020 Beirut port explosion has resumed his work after the probe was frozen for more than one year.

A gunman killed 10 people at a ballroom dance hall during a Chinese Lunar New Year celebration near Los Angeles before fleeing the scene and later killing himself when approached by police on Sunday, authorities said.

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Sunday that corruption, the country's chronic problem cast into the background by the war against Russia, would not be tolerated and promised forthcoming key decisions on uprooting it this week.

India has blocked the airing of a BBC documentary that questioned Prime Minister Narendra Modi's leadership during the 2002 Gujarat riots, saying that even sharing of any clips via social media is barred.

Tens of millions of people in Pakistan were left without electricity on Monday, the power ministry said, reporting a second "major breakdown" of the national grid during the last three months.

A man fatally shot 10 people at a ballroom dance venue where people were celebrating the Chinese Lunar New Year late on Saturday in a city on the eastern edge of Los Angeles, and he was still at large after fleeing the scene, police said.

Calling all South Africans: be sparing with electrical appliances after 4 p.m., think twice about whether you really need to boil so much water for that tea, and don't even think about switching on your air conditioner after dark.

Thousands of people packed into central Madrid on Saturday to protest against the Socialist government and accuse it of undermining the constitution in a rally backed by rightist parties.

A tearful Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy attended a memorial service on Saturday to commemorate seven senior Interior Ministry officials killed in a helicopter crash this week.

British police fined Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Friday for failing to wear a seat belt while he filmed a social media clip in the back seat of a moving car, a potentially embarrassing blow as he tries to revive his party's fortunes.

Chris Hipkins, who played a significant role in New Zealand's response to the COVID-19 pandemic, is set to replace Jacinda Ardern as prime minister after emerging on Saturday as the only candidate to lead the ruling Labour Party.

Senior US officials are advising Ukraine to hold off on launching a major offensive against Russian forces until the latest supply of US weaponry is in place, and training has been provided.

At least eight people were injured when a bomb blast derailed a passenger train in the southwestern Pakistani province of Balochistan on Friday, a local official said.

Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskiy said his government was expecting "strong decisions" from defence leaders of NATO and other countries meeting on Friday to discuss boosting Ukraine's ability to confront Russian forces with modern battle tanks.

Fire swept through part of a shanty town in the South Korean capital, Seoul, on Friday, destroying 60 homes, many constructed from cardboard and wood, and forcing the evacuation of around 500 people.

Thousands of protesters in Peru, many from the country's heavily indigenous south, have descended on Lima, the capital, angered by a mounting death toll since unrest erupted last month and calling for sweeping change.

US President Joe Biden said he has "no regrets" about his handling of classified documents found at his home and former office and that he believes the matter will be resolved.

Nominations for candidates to replace Jacinda Ardern as New Zealand's prime minister must be submitted by 9:00 am Saturday (2200GMT) ahead of a leadership vote on Sunday, the Labour Party's chief whip said in an emailed statement on Friday.

A stampede near a football stadium in the city of Basra in southern Iraq killed one person and injured dozens on Thursday, when thousands of fans were trying to enter the stadium.

Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, an ally of Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin, warned NATO on Thursday that the defeat of Russia in Ukraine could trigger a nuclear war.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern on Thursday made a shock announcement she had "no more in the tank" to continue leading the country and would step down no later than early February and not seek re-election.

The number of COVID patients needing critical care in China's hospitals has peaked, health authorities said on Thursday, as millions travelled across the country for long-awaited reunions with families, raising fears of fresh outbreaks.

Ukraine's interior minister was among at least 16 people killed on Wednesday morning when a helicopter crashed near a nursery outside Kyiv.

Officials in Nepal said on Wednesday there was no chance of finding any survivors in the plane crash, but workers will continue to search for the remains of the last missing passenger.

Ukraine is a step closer to winning approval for German-made modern battle tanks to confront invading Russian forces and has secured a pledge of more Patriot defence missiles as its allies appear ready to rally for the next phase of the war.

A Qantas Airways flight from New Zealand landed safely at Sydney airport on Wednesday after the airline said it had issued a distress signal due to an issue with one of its engines.

Climate campaigner Greta Thunberg was detained alongside other activists on Tuesday during protests against the demolition of a village to make way for a coal mine expansion but was released after an identity check, according to police.

Vietnam President Nguyen Xuan Phuc has resigned after the ruling Communist Party blamed him for "violations and wrongdoing" by officials under his control, the government said on Tuesday, in a major escalation of the country's anti-graft campaign.

Kazakhstan will no longer allow Russian citizens to stay in the Central Asian country indefinitely by doing so-called visa runs every three months, according to a government directive published this week.

Searchers used drones and rappelled down a 200-metre deep gorge in west Nepal on Tuesday to search for two passengers still unaccounted for after the deadly plane crash, which killed at least 70 people.

The death toll from a Russian missile strike on an apartment building in the east Ukrainian city of Dnipro has risen to 44, Dnipro mayor Borys Filatov said on Tuesday.

China's population fell last year for the first time in six decades, a historic turn that is expected to mark the start of a long period of decline in its citizen numbers with profound implications for its economy and the world.

British Foreign Minister James Cleverly will seek to bolster support for Ukraine on a trip to the United States and Canada which begins on Tuesday, ahead of the first anniversary of the invasion by Russia.

Searchers on Monday found both the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder from a passenger flight that crashed on Sunday, killing at least 68 people in Nepal's deadliest plane crash in 30 years, officials said.

Twenty people were killed and 24 wounded when a truck collided into a passenger bus in Senegal on Monday.

Italy's most wanted mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro, who had been on the run for three decades, has been arrested on Monday.

Russia and Belarus began joint military exercises on Monday, which have triggered fears in Kyiv and the West that Moscow could use its ally to launch a new ground offensive in Ukraine.

Peru has extended a state of emergency for another month in the capital city of Lima and two southern regions where deadly protests against the government have sparked the country's worst violence in 20 years.

At least 68 people were killed on Sunday when a domestic flight crashed in Pokhara in Nepal, the country's Civil Aviation Authority said, in the worst air crash in three decades in the small Himalayan nation.

US President Joe Biden approved an emergency declaration for California on Saturday, as storms have pounded the Golden State since December 26, killing at least 19 people and bringing floods, power outages, mudslides, evacuations and road closures.

The death toll from a Russian missile strike on an apartment building in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro climbed to 21 on Sunday, as rescue workers raced to dig through a huge pile of debris in search of survivors.

China resumed on Sunday high-speed rail services between Hong Kong and the mainland for the first time since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, as it dismantles travel curbs after Beijing scrapped quarantine for arrivals a week earlier.

COVID fever and emergency hospitalisations have peaked in China, and the number of hospitalised COVID patients is continuing to decline, a Chinese health official said on Saturday.

Romanian authorities started on Saturday to take away luxury cars seized as part of a criminal inquiry into alleged human trafficking that led to the arrest of divisive internet personality Andrew Tate.

Russian missile attacks hit critical infrastructure in Kyiv and the eastern city of Kharkiv, officials said, and the governor of another region warned that a massive missile strike could follow in the coming hours.

Iran has executed a British-Iranian national who once served as its deputy defence minister, its judiciary reported on Saturday, defying calls from London for his release after he was handed the death sentence on charges of spying for Britain.

China on Friday launched a Long March-2D carrier rocket, placing three satellites in space, Chinese News Agency, Xinhua, reported.

A New York judge on Friday sentenced Donald Trump's namesake real estate company to pay a $1.61 million criminal penalty after it was convicted of scheming to defraud tax authorities for 15 years.

Japanese prosecutors on Friday indicted the man suspected of killing former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, a local district court said on Friday.

Ukraine said its troops were holding out against pro-Moscow forces in the eastern salt mining town of Soledar as more than 500 civilians including children were trapped there.

Thousands took to the streets of Peru's capital Lima in a peaceful protest against the new government and president, after weeks of bloody clashes triggered by the ousting of former President Pedro Castillo left at least 42 dead.

The Japanese government gave an estimation for when the water from the destroyed Fukushima nuclear power plant will be released into the sea, saying at a cabinet meeting held on Friday it could happen sometime "around this spring or summer".

President Joe Biden's own administration named a special counsel to probe the improper storage of classified documents at his home and a former office on Thursday, an echo of a wider-ranging inquiry directed at his main political rival, Donald Trump.

Moscow named a new commander for its invasion of Ukraine while Russian private military firm Wagner Group said its capture of the salt mining town Soledar in eastern Ukraine was complete, though the Ukrainian military said the battle was not over.

Brokering a deal on a safe zone around Ukraine's Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant is getting harder because of the involvement of the military in talks, the head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog said on Wednesday.

U.S. flights were slowly beginning to resume departures and a ground stop was lifted after the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) scrambled to fix a system outage that had forced a halt to departing flights.

Flights across the U.S. were grounded or delayed on Wednesday as the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) scrambled to fix a system outage, with passengers told to check with airlines for updates.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy stripped four political figures of their Ukrainian citizenship, including pro-Kremlin politician Viktor Medvedchuk who was transferred to Russia last year in a prisoner swap deal.

Countries should consider recommending that passengers wear masks on long-haul flights, given the rapid spread of the latest Omicron subvariant of COVID-19 in the United States, World Health Organisation (WHO) officials said on Tuesday.

Chinese state media defended on Wednesday the retaliatory measures against South Korea and Japan over their COVID-19 travel curbs as "reasonable", while Chinese tourists decried Seoul's "insulting" treatment on social media.

Russia and China are ready to resume mutual travel as soon as possible and deepen their strategic cooperation, Zhang Hanhui, China's ambassador to Russia told the Russian state TASS news agency in remarks published on Wednesday.

Brazil's former President Jair Bolsonaro on Tuesday was released from a hospital near Orlando, Florida, where he had been admitted on Monday, a source close to the Bolsonaro family said.

Russia has stepped up a "powerful assault" led by the Wagner contract militia on Soledar in eastern Ukraine, Kyiv said on Monday, describing a difficult situation for forces repelling waves of attacks around the salt mining town and nearby fronts.

Pfizer Inc is not in talks with Chinese authorities to licence a generic version of its COVID-19 treatment Paxlovid for use there, but is in discussions about a price for the branded product, Chief Executive Albert Bourla said.

Far-right former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro was admitted to a hospital in Florida on Monday with stomach pains as 1,500 of his supporters were rounded up in Brasilia after storming key buildings in the capital over the weekend.

Indonesia was struck by a 7.6 magnitude earthquake on Tuesday off the Tanimbar islands, prompting panicked residents in the area to flee their homes, although a tsunami warning was lifted after three hours and initial reports indicated limited damage.

The latest in a string of Pacific storms blamed for at least 12 deaths soaked California on Monday, prompting evacuations of some 25,000 people, including the entire town of Montecito and nearby areas of the Santa Barbara coast, due to heightened flood and mudslide risks.

The first attempt to launch a satellite from western Europe appeared to have failed early on Tuesday when Virgin Orbit said an "anomaly" had prevented its rocket from reaching orbit.

Ukraine is strengthening its forces in the eastern Donbas region and repelling constant attacks on Bakhmut and other towns there by Russian mercenary group Wagner, Ukrainian authorities said on Monday.

Brazil's Supreme Court removed the governor of Brasilia from office for 90 days over security failings that it said allowed thousands of backers of far-right former President Jair Bolsonaro to ransack government buildings in the capital.

China braced for a "new phase" in its battle against COVID-19 on Monday and financial markets strengthened after Beijing dropped pandemic border controls in the latest easing of curbs that has let the virus loose on its 1.4 billion population.

Thailand has rescinded an entry policy announced at the weekend requiring visitors to show proof of a COVID-19 vaccination, its health minister said on Monday, citing sufficient immunisation levels in China and globally.

Supporters of Brazil's far-right former President Jair Bolsonaro invaded and defaced the country's Congress, presidential palace and Supreme Court on Sunday, in a grim echo of the U.S. Capitol invasion two years ago by fans of former President Donald Trump.

Heavy fog in Delhi on Monday delayed flights, and a cold wave forced authorities to defer school reopenings a week, as visibility fell and cars drove with their hazard lights on.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese promised help to repair homes, replace property and rebuild infrastructure as he toured remote flood-ravaged communities across the northwest after "1-in-100-year" floods.

President Joe Biden visited the US-Mexico border on Sunday for the first time since taking office, tackling one of the most politically charged issues in the country as he prepares for a re-election bid.

Travellers began streaming across land and sea crossings from Hong Kong to mainland China on Sunday, many eager for long-awaited reunions, as Beijing opened borders that have been all but shut since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Russia's overnight bombing of regions in eastern Ukraine killed at least one, local officials said on Sunday, after Moscow ended a self-declared Christmas ceasefire and vowed to push on with combat until it reaches a victory over its neighbour.

Australia's weather forecaster said on Sunday that record-breaking floods in the country's northwest had now left many communities isolated, as the days-long crisis continued.

Sir Richard Branson, the founder of the Virgin Group, will be boarding Virgin Galactic's VSS Unity and blasting off to space on Sunday.

Singapore is reviewing penalties for violent offences following an outcry over a 12-day prison sentence for a student who strangled his girlfriend until she blacked out.