Israel's foreign minister said Friday the world was obliged to stop Iran developing an atomic bomb, days after Israel claimed it had "thwarted Iran's nuclear project" in a 12-day war.

Iran on Friday rejected a request by UN nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi to visit facilities bombed by Israel and the United States, saying that it suggested "malign intent".

Beijing, China -- Chinese electric vehicle maker Xiaomi received almost 300,000 pre-orders within an hour for its first sport utility vehicles in what the company said was a "miraculous" moment for the industry. Lei Jun, founder and CEO of the electronics-turned-car company, said he was astonished by the reaction from...

Washington, United States -- Conflicts and related fatalities have more than tripled since the early 2000s, fueling extreme poverty, the World Bank said Friday. Economies in fragile and conflict-affected regions have become "the epicenter of global poverty and food insecurity, a situation increasingly shaped by the frequency and intensity of...

In a 6-3 ruling stemming from Trump's bid to end birthright citizenship, the court said nationwide injunctions issued by district court judges "likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has granted to federal courts." The top court did not immediately rule on the constitutionality of Trump's executive order seeking to...

Dubai, United Arab Emirates -- The UAE supreme court has jailed 24 people for life after upholding their convictions for "terrorist" links. "The Criminal Chamber of the Federal Supreme Court ruled (on Thursday) to partially overturn the judgment issued by the State Security Chamber at the Abu Dhabi Federal Court...

Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi shut down what he said was "speculation" that Tehran would come to the table and said it "should not be taken seriously.

London, United Kingdom - The BBC, Britain's public broadcaster that is struggling with strained finances, on Thursday launched a paid subscription service to its website in the United States to help fund its journalism. For $49.99 a year, or $8.99 a month, users will have "unlimited access" to the BBC's...

UN climate chief Simon Stiell urged countries on Thursday to accelerate negotiations ahead of the COP30 in Brazil as there was a lot left to be done.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on Thursday said Gaza was in a "catastrophic situation of genocide" and urged the European Union to immediately suspend its cooperation deal with Israel.

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia -- Cristiano Ronaldo inked a two-year extension with Saudi Arabia's Al Nassr, the club announced Thursday, following months of speculation over which team he would sign for next season. "Cristiano Ronaldo is staying at @AlNassrFC until 2027," the club wrote in a post on X. Minutes before the...

Paris, France -- A gardening game created by a teenager on online platform Roblox has attracted a record 21 million simultaneous players, a figure rarely seen in the industry. "You could quite easily never have heard of Grow a Garden... and yet it is by some measures the biggest video...

The shipment of supplies, plasma and blood will be distributed among hospitals in the Palestinian territory in the coming days, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.

Trump, seeking credit for ordering military action and then quickly announcing a ceasefire between Israel and Iran, has lashed out angrily at media accounts of a classified report that doubted the extent of damage to Iranian nuclear sites.

The war erupted on June 13 when Israel launched a surprise bombing campaign that it said aimed to stop Iran developing a nuclear weapon -- an ambition Iran has consistently denied.

Lebanese militant group Hezbollah on Wednesday hailed what it called its ally Iran's victory over Israel after 12 days of war, declaring it the start of a "new historical phase".

Bezos, 61, and Sanchez, 55, are said to have booked out the city's finest hotels for a star-studded guest list rumoured to include Leonardo DiCaprio, Mick Jagger, Kim Kardashian, Oprah Winfrey and Orlando Bloom.

Tehran, Iran -- Iranian lawmakers voted Wednesday in favor of suspending cooperation with the United Nations' atomic energy watchdog, state TV said, after a 12-day war that saw Israeli and US strikes on nuclear sites. "The International Atomic Energy Agency, which refused to even marginally condemn the attack on Iran's...

The telescope, which can see farther into the universe than anything before it, has turbocharged the search for planets beyond the Solar System since coming online in 2022.

Beirut, Lebanon -- The World Bank announced on Wednesday it had approved $250 million to support Lebanon's post-war reconstruction and a $146 million grant to rehabilitate neighboring Syria's electricity sector. Lebanon is reeling from last year's devastating war between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah, while Syria faces massive needs after Islamist-led...

"I think great progress is being made on Gaza," Trump said, adding that his special envoy Steve Witkoff had told him: "Gaza is very close." He linked his optimism about imminent "very good news" to Israel-Iran ceasefire.

The Hague, Netherlands - NATO leaders are set to sign off Wednesday at their Hague summit on a defence spending pledge to satisfy US President Donald Trump's demand for a headline figure of five percent of GDP. Here are the details of what NATO is signing up to: Five percent?...

New York City Democrats chose 33-year-old Muslim socialist Zohran Mamdani as their mayoral candidate in Tuesday's elections, stunning his opponent, former New York governor Andrew Cuomo.

China's Ministry of State Security (MSS) said the placement of what amounted to job advertisements on social media platform X was an "amateurish gambit" to convince people to spy for the Americans.

Trump rejected that claim on Tuesday, posting on his Truth Social account that “the nuclear sites in Iran are completely destroyed.”

The Fed has a duty to prevent a one-time spike in prices from becoming an "ongoing inflation problem," said Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell before the House Committee on Financial Services.

Civil defense spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP that 21 people were killed and around 150 wounded by Israeli fire near an aid point in central Gaza early Tuesday, and that another 25 were killed in a separate incident in south Gaza.

The main international and US oil contracts briefly bounced off their lows as Israel and Iran accused each other of breaking the ceasefire, but  then fell around five percent after Trump berated the two countries in an expletive-laced outburst.

As a fragile ceasefire with Israel took hold after 12 days of fighting that also included US strikes, Pezeshkian told his counterpart from the United Arab Emirates that the two countries "cannot impose unjust aspirations by force".

Mahmoud Khalil, one of the most prominent leaders of pro-Palestinian protests on US campuses, recounted his experience surviving 104 days in Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention after being targeted for deportation by the Trump administration.

From meeting his spending demand to limiting the participation of Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky, everything is being done to try to avoid the chances of a damaging confrontation with the volatile leader.

An "unidentified" drone struck a military base in Baghdad early Tuesday while another fell in the west of the capital, Iraqi security sources said.

The adversaries had been swapping missile fire since Israel carried out surprise "preemptive" strikes against Iran on June 13, targeting nuclear and military sites, and prompting Trump to warn of a possible "massive" regional conflict.

No casualties reported in the attack that came a day after the US attacked three key nuclear facilities in Iran. Saudi Arabia and UAE have condemned Qatar strikes, which led to a more than 6 percent fall in oil prices.

Brussels, Belgium -- The EU said Monday that Israel must improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza or else face possible consequences, after a review of a cooperation deal found it fell short of its human-rights obligations. The European Union's top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, said the bloc hopes to use a...

British Airways cancelled flights between London's Heathrow Airport and Dubai and Doha on Sunday following the US strikes on Iran. Air France halted flights to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates until at least Tuesday inclusive, the airline said.

US stocks edged higher while European markets retreated and Asian equities were mixed, with markets keeping a close eye on whether Iran will block the crucial Strait of Hormuz, which carries one-fifth of global oil output. When trading opened on Monday, international benchmark crude contract Brent and US equivalent WTI...

Economists at MUFG warned of "high uncertainty of the outcomes and duration of this war", giving a "scenario analysis" of an oil price increase of $10 per barrel.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday insisted gains in the conflict against Iran would help with the country's war footing in Gaza and bringing the hostages home but said "more time" was needed.

Iran on Sunday threatened US bases in the Middle East after massive air strikes that Washington said had destroyed Tehran's nuclear program, though some officials cautioned that the extent of damage was unclear.

The United Nations special envoy for Syria denounced Sunday's attack on a church in Damascus that killed at least 20 people as a "heinous crime".

Tokyo, Japan -- When YouTuber Hannah Price set out to compare Japanese and Australian sunscreen, she wasn't expecting her deep dive into the subject to rack up over two million views. The huge number of people poring over Price's video shows the growing interest in skincare products from Japan, much...

The US military says the GBU-57 -- also named Massive Ordnance Penetrator -- is designed to penetrate up to 200 feet (60 meters) underground before exploding. This differs from missiles or bombs that typically detonate their payload near or on impact.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told reporters in Istanbul the United States and Israel had "crossed a very big red line," asserting Iran would continue to defend itself "by all means necessary."

Iran's former arch-rival in the region, Saudi Arabia, which has been engaged in a Chinese-brokered détente with Tehran since 2023, expressed "great concern" over the attacks. Gulf countries have been engaged in a diplomatic frenzy for solutions since Israel launched its air campaign on their neighbor Iran on June 13.

"No radioactive effects were detected on the environment of the Kingdom and the Arab Gulf states as a result of the American military targeting of Iran's nuclear facilities," the kingdom's Nuclear and Radiological Regulatory Commission wrote in a post on X.

New York, United States -- Tesla is expected to begin offering robotaxi service Sunday in Austin, an initial step that Elon Musk's backers believe could lead to the company's next growth wave. The launch -- which comes as Musk refocuses on his business ventures following a controversial stint in Donald...

Trump called on Iran to "agree to end this war," saying that "now is the time for peace." But it remains to be seen whether the strikes will push Tehran to deescalate the conflict, or to widen it further by attacking American bases of closing the strait of Hormuz.

UNHCR, the UN's refugee agency, said the intensity of the attacks between the two sides was already triggering population movements in both countries. Such movements had already been reported from Tehran and other parts of Iran, it said, with some people crossing into neighboring countries.

New Delhi will "never" reinstate a key water treaty it suspended with Pakistan over deadly violence in India-administered Kashmir, the interior minister said in an interview published Saturday