Prime Minister Boris Johnson yesterday welcomed early election results in Britain’s first major vote since Brexit and the pandemic, including a stunning by-election victory for his Conservative party in an opposition Labour stronghold.

The United Nations yesterday urged Israel to call off any forced evictions in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem, warning that its actions could amount to “war crimes”.

China’s annual greenhouse gas emissions stood at 27% of the world total in 2019, exceeding combined OECD emissions for the first time, according to research published on Thursday.

Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei yesterday called Israel “not a country, but a terrorist base” and urged Muslim nations to fight it, as they mark an annual day of pro-Palestinian rallies.

The scientific committee overseeing Britain’s coronavirus vaccination programme yesterday recommended that under-40s are offered an alternative to the Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid jab.

A girl opened fire at a school in the northwestern US state of Idaho on Thursday, injuring three people before being disarmed by a teacher, police said.

Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan was due in Saudi Arabia yesterday for a visit aimed at enhancing ties after months of strained relations over the disputed region of Kashmir.

Former Maldives president Mohamed Nasheed was in a “critical” condition yesterday following an assassination attempt, doctors said.

Scotland’s main pro-independence party enjoyed early successes yesterday in crucial Scottish parliament election results which could determine the future of the United Kingdom, although its leader cautioned the result remained “on a knife edge”.

The Covid-19 pandemic has caused nearly 6.9 million deaths across the world, more than double the number officially recorded, a new analysis from the University of Washington, DC’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) estimated.

World powers held a fourth round of high-level talks Friday aimed at bringing the United States back into the nuclear deal with Iran, with both sides signaling a willingness to work out the major stumbling blocks.

Lobbying by Poland and Hungary has led to the removal of the phrase "gender equality" from a draft declaration on advancing social cohesion that the EU is due to publish on Friday, according to diplomats and documents seen by Reuters.

A federal grand jury has indicted the four former Minneapolis police officers involved in George Floyd’s arrest and death, accusing them of violating the Black man’s constitutional rights as he was restrained face-down on the pavement and gasping for air, according to indictments unsealed Friday.

Most debris from a large Chinese rocket expected to plunge back through the atmosphere this weekend will be burned up on reentry and is highly unlikely to cause any harm, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said today.

Firefighters in London were tackling a blaze at a 19-storey block of flats in the east of the city on Friday, with parts of the 8th, 9th and 10th floors all on fire, the Fire Brigade said.

Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan begins a two-day visit on Friday to Saudi Arabia, a traditionally close ally said.

More than 200 civil society groups, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, called on the UN Security Council on Wednesday to impose an arms embargo on Myanmar to help protect civilians peacefully protesting a military coup.

The Taliban have captured Afghanistan’s second-biggest dam after months of fierce fighting in their former bastion of Kandahar, the insurgents and officials said yesterday.

Britain and France sent navy and coastal patrol ships to waters near the Channel island of Jersey yesterday as tensions spiralled between the two neighbours over post-Brexit fishing rights.

SpaceX managed to land its prototype Starship rocket at its Texas base without blowing it up on Wednesday, the first time it has succeeded in doing so in five attempts.