MOSCOW: Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov on Thursday warned that NATO nuclear facilities, if permanently located on the Polish territory, will become a military target for Russia.

CHENNAI: The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have deployed its elite Nahal Brigade in the Rafah region of the Gaza Strip.

NEW YORK: Hundreds of students have been arrested on US campuses as protests against Washington’s support for Israel are surging sea to sea.

MEXICO CITY: The US must modify its foreign policy to respect the sovereignty of nations, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has said.

WASHINGTON: The US shipped a new long-range missile system to Ukraine after the delivery received a secret sign-off, the Pentagon has said.

NEW YORK: A UN resolution tabled by the US and Japan against an arms race in space has failed in the UN Security Council due to a veto by Russia.

GAZA: The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have mobilised two additional reserve brigades ahead of a possible deployment to the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.

COLOMBO: Visiting Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and Sri Lanka President Ranil Wickremesinghe on Wednesday inaugurated the Uma Oya Multipurpose Development Project (UOMDP) with an expected annual energy production of 290 gigawatt hours.

STRASBOURG: The European Parliament is set to vote Wednesday on stricter limit values against air pollution.

KABUL: Zamir Kabulov, the Russian President's Special Representative for Afghanistan, travelled to Kabul to hold meetings with the interim senior leadership of Afghanistan, including Deputy Prime Minister of Afghanistan Abdul Kabir, Foreign Affairs Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi and Acting Minister of Interior Affairs, Sirajuddin Haqqani.

COLOMBO: Amid the tension in the Middle East, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi arrived in Sri Lanka following his three-day visit to Pakistan.

BUENOS AIRES: Hundreds of thousands of people have taken to the streets in Argentina to protest against cuts in the higher education sector.

MOSCOW: The upcoming NATO exercises near the Russian border increase the risks of military incidents, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova was quoted by local media as saying on Wednesday.

WASHINGTON: The US Congress has approved a $61-billion aid package for Ukraine after months of stalling.

BERLIN: UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak will visit Berlin for the first time on Wednesday, 18 months after taking office.

ANKARA: German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier will end his three-day visit to Turkey on Wednesday with a meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

MOSCOW: Ukraine has used drones to strike energy facilities in the Smolensk region, 400 kilometres west of Moscow, according to Russian reports.

SEOUL: South Korea's health ministry on Wednesday expressed regret over medical professors' decision to take a weekly day off starting next week and urged them to engage in dialogue rather than resort to collective action amid the prolonged medical vacuum in the country.

UNITED NATIONS: Pressing the case for Security Council reforms, India has highlighted the consensus arrived at the more representative G20 Summit on issues that could not make it through the UN's highest decision-making body stuck in a "cold war" mode.

UNITED NATIONS: As the Global South grapples with the ossified structure of the main multilateral development banks (MDBs), India has taken a leading role in calling for the reform of the institutions created after World War 2 reflecting the power structure of that time.

BAGHDAD: An Iraqi investigation committee has said that the huge explosion, which occurred on April 20 at Kalsu military base in Iraq's central province of Babil, resulted from the explosion in ammunition and missile depots, not as a result of a missile strike.

KIEV: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said that Ukraine would soon get the largest-ever military aid package from Britain worth 500 million pounds ($619 million).

GENEVA: The bodies discovered in a mass grave in the Gaza Strip were not buried by Israeli soldiers but by Palestinians, according to Israel's embassy in Geneva.

TAIYUAN: A total of 42 public servants have been punished over a fire that killed 26 people and injured 38 others at a coal mine company building in China's Shanxi province.

PARIS: At least five people died while trying to cross the English Channel to Britain off the coast of northern France, local media reported.

ROME: The right-wing alliance of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has scored a victory in a regional election seen as a barometer of national opinion ahead of European elections in June.

GERMANY: An employee of a German member of the European Parliament, lawmaker Maximilian Krah, has been detained in Dresden on suspicion of spying for China, according to security sources.

LONDON: UK Prime Minster Rishi Sunak said "nothing will stand in our way" of getting flights to Rwanda off the ground, as the government braced itself for legal challenges to the scheme to send asylum seekers to the east African country.

UNITED NATIONS: India's Gita Sabharwal has been appointed as the United Nations Resident Coordinator in Indonesia, with the host Government's approval.

PARIS: French President Emmanuel Macron reiterated the call for an immediate and lasting ceasefire in Gaza during his phone call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

CANBERRA: Australia's Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has urged the nation's men and boys to take responsibility for ending a crisis of violence against women.

KUALA LUMPUR: Ten people were killed following a mid-air collision involving two Malaysian military helicopters on Tuesday morning in Perak state, the country's Navy said.

DAMASCUS: A convoy of US forces plundered more Syrian sources, taking out trucks of oil and grain through an illegal crossing with Iraq, the media reported.

MOSCOW: The West is teetering on the brink of a direct military clash between nuclear powers with its support for Ukraine, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.

TEHRAN: Iran's Foreign Ministry Spokesman Nasser Kanaani has warned that his country will make a "harsher and more decisive" response should Israel make another mistake.