Talks to save the Iran nuclear deal resumed in Vienna yesterday amid new tensions, with Tehran preparing to ramp up uranium enrichment in response to an attack on a facility it blamed on arch-foe Israel.

France has advised French citizens to temporarily leave Pakistan and warned of serious threats to French interests in the country, two diplomatic sources said yesterday, after violent clashes there this week.

The United States yesterday announced sanctions against Russia and the expulsion of 10 diplomats in retaliation for what Washington says is the Kremlin’s US election interference, a massive cyber attack and other hostile activity.

US climate envoy John Kerry met with his Chinese counterparts in Shanghai yesterday, in the first visit to China by an official from a Biden administration seeking to re-establish America’s leadership on the environment.

Six young climate activists are suing the Brazilian government for revising its commitments under the Paris Agreement in a way that allows the country to emit more greenhouse gases, environmentalists said Wednesday.

Canada will grant permanent residency to more than 90,000 foreign students and workers who helped treat patients during the pandemic, the immigration minister announced Wednesday.

An attack on an airport in Arbil, capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, was carried out by drone on Wednesday, the Kurdish interior ministry said, in an unprecedented escalation of the arms used to target US soldiers based there.

The United States today imposed a broad array of sanctions on Russia to punish it for alleged interference in the 2020 US election, cyber-hacking, bullying Ukraine and other “malign” acts.

The Editors Guild of India today urged the Indian government to declare journalists as frontline workers and ensure priority vaccination for them amid a rise in coronavirus cases.

The Indian Coast Guard apprehended a suspected Pakistani boat containing 30 kilogrammes of heroin and arrested eight Pakistani nationals from the vessel off the coast of Gujarat.

Three Bangladeshi men have reportedly been detained by police in Malaysia recently for possessing forged passports.

The United Arab Emirates’ envoy to Washington confirmed the Gulf state is mediating between India and Pakistan to help the nuclear-armed rivals reach a “healthy and functional” relationship.

Canada will grant permanent residency to more than 90,000 foreign students and workers who helped treat patients during the pandemic, the immigration minister announced Wednesday.

More than 100 US companies including Apple Inc, Amazon.com Inc, Ford Motor Co and Starbucks Corp have declared their opposition to voting curbs that a number of states are considering implementing.

Myanmar security forces opened fire today on a pro-democracy protest by medical workers in the city of Mandalay, causing some casualties, media said.

India reported more than two lakh fresh Covid-19 cases in a single day, the highest so far, and 1,038 new deaths in the same time span amidst an increasingly grim picture of the disease.

One person has died, a dozen are missing and six others have been rescued after a commercial lift boat used to service oil rigs capsized in hurricane force winds south of Louisiana’s Port Fourchon, the US Coast Guard said on Wednesday.

Federal prosecutors in the Brazilian state of Roraima are investigating reports that illegally-mined gold is being exchanged for Covid-19 vaccines in the Yanomami indigenous reserve, the prosecutors office told Reuters on Wednesday.

More than 60 former heads of state, including former leaders of Britain and France, and over 100 Nobel Prize winners called on US President Joe Biden to back a waiver of intellectual property rules for Covid-19 vaccines.

President Joe Biden said on Wednesday he will begin withdrawing US troops from Afghanistan on May 1 to end America's longest war, rejecting calls for US forces to stay to ensure a peaceful resolution to that country's internal conflict.