KIEV:Rafael Grossi, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said that there is "no immediate threat" to safety at Ukraine's Zaporizhzhya nuclear plant despite continued shelling, but the situation could however change "at any moment".

BEIRUT:Amid a severe economic crisis in Lebanon, an armed man held hostages inside a bank in Beirut, demanding access to his frozen assets, security officials and witnesses said.

WASHINGTON: The FBI agents were looking for documents relating to nuclear weapons, among others, in the unprecedented search they conducted of the premises of former US President Donald Trump earlier this week in Florida, according to a stunning news report.

KIEV: Ukraine has to implement 107 regulations and directives under the Association Agreement with the European Union (EU), the country's Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration, Olha Stefanishyna said.

The decisive vote that turned Democrat Joe Manchin from 'villain' to 'hero'

TOKYO: China has overtaken the US as the world leader in both scientific research output and "high impact" studies, according to a report published by Japans science and technology ministry.

GENEVA: Ukraine wants Switzerland to represent its interests in Russia after the break-off of diplomatic relations, the Swiss Foreign Ministry in Bern announced on Thursday.

LONDON: London's Heathrow airport has insisted that the recent travel chaos is beginning to ease after telling airlines to cut their flight programmes to tackle delays and cancellations.

MADRID: Spain has taken in 294 more Afghans in need of protection nearly one year after the last US soldiers left the country and a hardline Taliban government took over.

KABUL: More than 400 private schools across Afghanistan have closed their doors due to various reasons, including economic problems, a local news outlet said in a report on Thursday.

ISLAMABAD: Narendra Modi and Shehbaz Sharif, the Prime Ministers of India and Pakistan, are likely to have a meeting during the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, diplomatic sources told a media outlet.

MELBOURNE: Authorities in Australia's Victoria state have announced that free masks will be handed out to the community in an effort to curb the spread of Covid-19.

MOSCOW: Russian authorities raided the home of journalist Marina Ovsyannikova for allegedly discrediting the country's army.

BEIJING: Amid the continuing tensions over Taiwan, China on Wednesday again threatened to take the democratic self-governing island by military means if necessary.

BERLIN: Tourism in Germany continues to recover from the effects of the coronavirus pandemic, with overnight stays almost reaching pre-crisis levels in June.

KIEV: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the ongoing war with Russia will not end until the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, which was annexed by Moscow, is liberated.

LONDON:The fertility rate in England and Wales has increased for the first time since 2012, official figures have confirmed.
There were 624,828 live births registered in England and Wales in 2021, up 1.8 per cent from 2020, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said on Tuesday.

MOSCOW: Russian forces have started installing an air defence system at Europe's largest nuclear power plant in Zaporizhzhya, in occupied Ukraine, after shelling triggered fears of a catastrophic accident.

COLOMBO:Demonstrations planned by Sri Lankan opposition parties and trade unions have fizzled out, with smaller crowds turning up to mark the fourth month of an anti-government protest campaign launched in the wake of the ongoing economic crisis.

LONDON:The UK is bracing for days of extreme temperatures in the latest heatwave, as the Met Office has issued a four-day amber warning for extreme heat in parts of England and Wales for Thursday to Sunday.

DAR ES SALAAM:Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan has wished neighbouring Kenyans peaceful general elections as they went to the polls to vote for their leaders.

 WASHINGTON:The US House Ways and Means Committee can use a federal law to gain access to the tax returns of former President Donald Trump, a federal appeals court in Washington has ruled.

 VILNIUS(Lithuania): Belarusian Opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya has presented an alternative team of people prepared to rule the country, in order to replace leader Alexander Lukashenko.

WASHINGTON: US President Joe Biden underlined the strength of NATO as Finland and Sweden join the alliance, amid altered security architecture in the West following Russia's continued war against Ukraine.

NAIROBI: Kenyans are voting on Tuesday to elect a President and a new Parliament, with around 22 million people eligible to cast their ballots in a closely fought election.

SAN FRANCISCO: Meta (formerly Facebook) just unveiled an artificial intelligence (AI) conversational chatbot asking the public to give feedback. The initial reports are scary as the chatbot named BlenderBot 3 thinks Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg is "creepy and manipulative" and Donald Trump will always be the US president.

ISLAMABAD: Pakistani authorities have suspended transmission of a leading television news channel after a segment was aired about the armed forces that was deemed a threat to national security.

KATHMANDU: In a major development, the Sher Bahadur Deuba government has allowed India's NHPC to study and develop two hydroelectric projects that will have the combined potential of generating 1,200 megawatts of energy.

TEL AVIV: Authorities in Israel on Tuesday said that a leading member of the al-Aqsa Brigades -- the military arm of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah movement -- during a military operation in the West Bank.

WASHINGTON : Three US white men were sentenced for federal hate crimes over the murder of African-American man Ahmaud Arbery in 2020.

ISLAMABAD: Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) commander Omar Khalid Khorasani was reportedly killed in an IED blast in Afghanistan on Sunday evening.

WASHINGTON: Former US President Donald Trump has said that his residence in Florida has been "raided" by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

WASHINGTON: The administration of US President Joe Biden has announced that the US will provide Ukraine with $1 billion worth of additional security assistance, the largest one-time weapons package since the beginning of the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

NEW DELHI: The sudden chill in the US-China relations, brought about by Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan, illuminates a new security crisis in the Indo-Pacific region.