WORLD

Huddled inside a tent in rebel-held northwestern Syria, Umm Khaled says she fears her baby will die unless she gets specialist treatment in neighbouring Turkey for a congenital heart defect.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Thursday urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to undermine prospects for a Palestinian state, after talks in Saudi Arabia which linked normalization to peace efforts. Blinken in a speech this week before the leading US pro-Israel group said that he would work to win recognition of the Jewish state by Saudi Arabia -- a major goal for Israel due to the kingdom's size and role as guardian of Islam's two holiest sites.

Britain's financial regulator on Thursday tightened rules over the promotion and selling of cryptocurrency as it seeks to protect consumers.

Pope Francis, 86, spent a restful night and was in good condition after a hernia operation, the Vatican said Thursday, as doctors cautioned his age and health issues could affect his recovery time.

Russia accused Ukraine at the UN's top court Thursday of destroying a key dam with artillery strikes, and alleged that Kyiv was led by neo-Nazis -- a claim Moscow has used to try to justify its invasion.

Forest fires continued to burn across Canada on Thursday as the country endured its worst-ever start to wildfire season, forcing thousands of people from their homes and sending a smoky haze billowing across U.S.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visited the region flooded by the breached Kakhovka dam Thursday, as Moscow-installed authorities said five people had been killed in the disaster.

The Taliban government may have banned international NGOs from offering education to out-of-school Afghan children, UNICEF said Thursday, putting the teaching of half a million boys and girls at risk.

Taliban-trained suicide bomber Ismail Ashuqullah regrets missing the chance to blow himself up at the height of the Afghan war -- like many other young men from the lush green Tangi Valley.

Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan said it was "disheartening and absolutely unacceptable" that some wealthy countries had not brought their nationals home.

Ousted Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan was on Thursday due to appeal to several courts for bail on a growing list of charges against him in a bid to avert his arrest, which could risk a repeat of violent protests by his supporters.

The U.N. children's agency said on Thursday it was following up with Afghanistan's Taliban authorities over whether international organisations would be excluded from education projects, which could affect hundreds of thousands of students.

The European Commission and the United Arab Emirates' presidency of this year's COP28 climate summit pledged on Wednesday to seek support for global goals to expand renewable energy, which they said would help countries to shift from unabated fossil fuels. The UAE's incoming COP28 President Sultan al-Jaber - who is also the head of the country's national oil company - last month urged countries to focus on "phasing out fossil fuel emissions". That could allow countries to keep using fossil fuels, while using technology to capture their emissions.

The destruction of the Kakhovka dam in Ukraine will have a catastrophic effect on locating landmines in the affected region, the Red Cross warned Wednesday.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday accused Ukraine of destroying the Kakhovka dam at the suggestion of the West, in what he called a "barbaric" war crime that escalated the conflict with Moscow.

Ukraine's assault against Russian positions flanking the city of Bakhmut has triggered a surge in battlefield casualties and piled pressure on frontline medics.

It is hoped Messi, who won the World Cup with his country in December, will give a massive boost to the popularity of the league and the sport in the run up to the 2026 World Cup which the US is hosing along with Mexico and Canada.

Shevtsova is one of thousands of Russians who have abandoned their homes and taken shelter in Belgorod, the nearest big Russian city to the border with Ukraine.

"If anyone thinks they should freeze the conflict and then see how to solve it, they don't understand it," he said in an online briefing aimed at African journalists, following a tour of African countries.

Moscow's intervention shows how geopolitical disputes since Russia's invasion of Ukraine last year are complicating global efforts to combat climate change. I

A Reuters witness said a large military convoy arrived in downtown Ramallah, the seat of the Palestinian government, leading hundreds of Palestinians to gather in the area.

Renewed fears that the Federal Reserve will lift interest rates next week sent Asian markets into reverse Thursday, tracking losses across Wall Street and Europe, while traders were looking for measures from China to boost growth.

Soccer's world governing body FIFA made false and misleading statements about the reduced environmental impact of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, a Swiss regulator said on Wednesday.

Along a polluted riverside, smoking charred oil drums in Mathare are cooking up chang'aa, a potent liquor that's both a scourge and a lifeline.

216 passengers and 16 crew who were on board the flight from Delhi to San Francisco had been moved to makeshift accommodations, given infrastructure limitations around the airport, the airline said.

Bangladesh has shut thousands of schools as it struggles through its lengthiest heatwave in half a century, with widespread power cuts only compounding locals' misery.

The currency, which was propped up by the central bank before the presidential election, fell five percent to 22.77 lira per dollar at around 0645 GMT.

Pakistan's government will hope to find a balance between reforms to satisfy the International Monetary Fund and measures to win over voters in an imminent election in its budget for the 2023-24 fiscal year to be announced on Friday, analysts said.

Eight weeks of fighting have pitted army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan against his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo -- commonly known as Hemeti -- who commands the powerful paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).