JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Indonesian police on Sunday arrested 72 people suspected of starting some of the recent forest and peatland fires as huge blazes in central and western parts of the country triggered a harmful cloud known as a choking haze. Indonesia has been battling fires driven by an int
TUNIS, Aug 23 (Reuters) – Eleven bodies have been recovered by Tunisia’s coastguard after a boat carrying Tunisian migrants sank at the weekend en route to Italy, with three others still unaccounted for, the National Guard said on Sunday. Coastguard, military and civil protection teams, backed by tw
WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Two people died and around half a million people were left without electricity across Latvia and Lithuania after a powerful cyclone, bringing rain and strong winds, hit the region on Saturday and into Sunday morning. “This seems to be the most severe storm in Latvia since 2005
By Nidal al-Mughrabi CAIRO, Aug 23 (Reuters) – Two Israeli airstrikes in the Gaza Strip on Sunday killed at least two people, including a four-year-old boy, and wounded seven others, Palestinian health officials said, as Israel warned it would intensify strikes after what it said were launches of ba
By Elwely Elwelly and Menna AlaaElDin DUBAI, Aug 23 (Reuters) – Iran’s foreign minister dismissed the threat of new U.S. sanctions as a sign of desperation on Sunday and said the expected new measures would fail to defeat Tehran. U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who is due to hold a press conf
By Max Hunder and Dan Peleschuk KYIV, Aug 23 (Reuters) – Holding a wartime election in Ukraine while active fighting with Russia continues would “destroy” the country by splitting Ukrainians, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said. His comments, released to reporters on Sunday, were Zelenskiy’s first on
The new head of Iran’s top security body warned Sunday that Tehran will see any country’s support for new U.S. economic measures against the Islamic Republic as an “act of war,” while Iran’s president defended a memorandum of understanding with the United States as the best way out of the stalled co
ALMATY, Aug 23 (Reuters) – Kazakhs began voting on Sunday, in a snap parliamentary election that looked set to strengthen President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev’s power over the Central Asian country, a major energy and minerals exporter. The election was triggered by the adoption of a new constitution ear
TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — Kazakhstan voted on Sunday in a parliamentary election that is expected to further strengthen President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev’s grip on power in Central Asia’s largest nation. The pro-presidential Adilet party is widely predicted to win an overwhelming majority, with several
CAIRO, Aug 23 (Reuters) – Pakistan’s army chief Asim Munir will visit Tehran on Monday to continue efforts to bring peace and security to the region, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said on Sunday, according to a statement by the ministry. Pakistan has taken on a mediator role i
By Tom Perry and Feras Dalatey DAMASCUS, Aug 23 (Reuters) – Syria expects negotiations to resume soon with Israel over a security deal it hopes will lead to Israel’s withdrawal from Syrian land, a top Syrian minister said, urging Israel to seize a “historic opportunity” as the door for diplomacy is
Aug 23 (Reuters) – The governor of Russia’s Orenburg region said on Sunday that two industrial facilities were hit by drone debris, including a warehouse owned by Ozon, a major Russian online retailer. Governor Yevgeny Solntsev said that the Russian defence ministry had repelled six drones over the
By Ben Blanchard and Yi-Chin Lee KINMEN, Taiwan, Aug 23 (Reuters) – Peace can only be secured through strength and not even an inch of territory can be sacrificed, Taiwan President Lai Ching-te said on Sunday, visiting a sensitive frontline island to mark a key battle with Chinese forces almost seve
By Jatindra Dash , Nidhi Verma and Saurabh Sharma NEW DELHI, Aug 23 (Reuters) – India’s Coast Guard and Navy continued search-and-rescue operations off the eastern coast on Sunday after a Panama-flagged cargo vessel carrying 24 crew sank, with two Chinese nationals rescued, a senior official said. T
ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Outside the Acropolis, a sea of hats bobs up and down the hill to the ancient site: straw boaters, Panama hats, baseball caps and bucket hats in the relentless heat. Hat racks are hard to miss in central Athens this summer. Kiosks and stores keep outdoor stands piled high as mo
TOKYO (AP) — A moderate earthquake rattled eastern Japan, including the Tokyo area, early Sunday, injuring more than 30 people, most of them lightly, officials said. There was no danger of a tsunami. According to the Japan Meteorological Agency, the quake had a preliminary magnitude of 5.9 and its e
SYDNEY, Aug 23 (Reuters) – Australia on Sunday confirmed its first case of H5N1 bird flu in a mammal, with the deadly virus found in a long-nosed fur seal in South Australia state. Australia has been grappling with rising cases of the highly pathogenic avian influenza after it landed in the country
MEXICO CITY, Aug 22 (Reuters) – Sinaloa Governor Ruben Rocha, indicted by U.S. federal prosecutors on drug-trafficking, bribery and cartel-protection charges, again requested a leave of absence from office on Saturday, days after defiantly reclaiming his post. Rocha’s return was not well received by
TUNIS, Tunisia (AP) — A boat carrying migrants capsized off the coast of southern Tunisia, killing at least two people and leaving 12 missing, Tunisia’s national guard said Saturday. One survivor was rescued. Guard spokesperson Houssem Eddine Jebabli told state news agency TAP that authorities recov
Aug 22 (Reuters) – Israel said it targeted a “terrorist” in southern Syria on Saturday in what Syria’s foreign ministry said was a drone strike on a civilian vehicle on the outskirts of Damascus in a “blatant” violation of its territory. The Syrian foreign ministry said the drone had hit a civilian
By Nidhi Verma, Saurabh Sharma and Jatindra Dash Aug 22 (Reuters) – India’s maritime rescue agency lost communication on Saturday with a Panama-flagged cargo vessel that sank off the coast of eastern India, the Indian Coast Guard said. The vessel had 24 crew on board, including 20 Chinese nationals,
ISTANBUL (AP) — Israel did not warn the United States before it struck an air base in northern Syria this week, despite fears of an escalation with the U.S. and NATO ally Turkey, the U.S. special envoy to Syria said. Israel usually closely coordinates its military actions with the U.S., its key back
By Promit Mukherjee and Bhargav Acharya OTTAWA, Aug 22 (Reuters) – Canada will impose tariffs on some U.S. goods in retaliation for 50% levies ordered by President Donald Trump on Canadian products, Prime Minister Mark Carney said on Saturday, after trade talks collapsed between the two neighbors. T
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians in Gaza make the difficult choice every day between digging into garbage dumps for combustible materials to help cook their meals or crowding around the territory’s scarce charity kitchens. The Kahlout family has tasked
Aug 22 (Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin said in comments published on Saturday that Kyiv had opened “Pandora’s box” with its strikes on Russian economic targets, saying that Russia would hit back at Ukraine’s “most sensitive economic sectors”. Ukraine has this summer escalated a campaign
Aug 22 (Reuters) – Two U.S. tanker aircraft have left Bulgaria’s Bezmer air base, Bulgaria’s defence minister said on Saturday, nearly a month after their deployment in the Balkan country angered Iran. The United States, which has been at war with Iran since February 28, requested their temporary de
BELGRADE, Aug 22 (Reuters) – The European Union’s Civil Protection Mechanism will send helicopters and firefighters to help Serbia fight a massive wildfire in a nature reserve in the northeast of the country, the head of the EU mission to Belgrade said on Saturday. Serbia activated the mechanism on
MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) — Somali pirates hijacked an oil products tanker off Yemen, a Somali maritime security official said, the latest in a resurgence of piracy that has seen six commercial vessels seized since April across the Gulf of Aden and western Indian Ocean. Six armed pirates hijacked the
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian drone and missile strikes killed at least seven people in Ukraine, officials said Saturday, while a Ukrainian drone attack on Russia’s Krasnodar region killed three people there. The attacks came a day after a Russian strike on a Ukrainian shopping center killed at least
WARSAW, Aug 22 (Reuters) – Romania’s National Committee for Emergency Situations approved new measures to boost the water level of the River Danube and ensure cooling of the Cernavoda nuclear power plant, the government press office said on Saturday. The plant remains shut due to historically low Da
