WORLD

Switzerland bars re-export of Swiss weaponry to nations at war, but the issue of the country's long tradition of neutrality has been under debate since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine just over a year ago.

Fighting is raging around Ukraine's eastern town of Bakhmut, with President Volodymyr Zelensky warning that if the town fell, Moscow would gain an "open road" for offensives deeper into his country.

The interior ministry said in a statement on Tuesday "a number of people" suspected of manufacturing hazardous substances had been arrested in six provinces, including a pupil's parent.

Turkey's residents have also increasingly favoured buying gold to shield themselves from rampant inflation and a steep decline in the value of the Turkish lira in recent years.

Witnesses said Israeli troops entered the camp and surrounded a house as a group of militants fought back, with the army reporting "explosive devices and blocks" were hurled at their soldiers.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has branded the saboteurs as "terrorists" and urged his security services to bolster defences along the frontier.

The explosions seven months into the Russia-Ukraine war of underwater pipelines between Russia and Germany occurred in the exclusive economic zones of Sweden and Denmark in the Baltic Sea.

The Biden administration last month said it would require companies winning $52.7 billion of available funds from the Chips Act to share excess profits and explain how they plan to provide affordable childcare.

In a small village circled by velvety white snow-topped mountains in Afghanistan's Bamiyan province, Aziza Rahimi mourns the baby son she lost last year after a harrowing birth with no medical care.

Ali Hasnain showed off the new clothes he would wear as he prepared for the long journey west to a better life.

Huwara, a Palestinian village near a major road junction where settlers and Palestinians have frequently clashed, has become the latest flashpoint between after months of worsening violence in the occupied West Bank.

Since US-led coalition troops ousted Saddam's Sunni Arab-dominated regime, Iraq's Shiite majority has led Iraq under a confessional power-sharing system.

The European Union is edging closer to a landmark move into joint procurement of ammunition to help Ukraine and replenish members' stockpiles but major questions regarding funding and scale remain to be resolved.

The Islamic Republic usually bristles at such resolutions and has in the past responded by accelerating the very nuclear activities that the 2015 deal was designed to rein in.

In December, veteran journalism lecturer Ismail Mashal tore up his degree certificates on live TV and denounced the Taliban's treatment of women in a clip that went viral in Afghanistan.

The limestone artefact, believed to be a stylised representation of an ancient Roman emperor, was found inside a two-level tomb near the temple in southern Egypt, the ministry said in a statement.

Iraq is the cradle of civilisations, where writing and the first cities emerged, but decades of unrest have left many priceless cultural treasures damaged or obliterated.

For better or worse, the 74-year-old former civil servant's bookish ways have stood out in sharp contrast to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's brash and bombastic style.

Ukraine has broadened a request for controversial cluster bombs from the United States to include a weapon that it wants to cannibalize to drop the anti-armor bomblets it contains on Russian forces from drones, according to two U.S.

Iran's supreme leader said on Monday that the poisoning schoolgirls is an "unforgivable" crime that should be punished by death if deliberate, state TV reported, amid public anger over a wave of suspected attacks in schools.

Eren Can was silent as he lit a candle and placed it on the windowsill in his home in central Istanbul to mourn the victims of the earthquakes that struck Turkey's south last month, including his own parents.

Ukrainian troops have been reinforcing positions west of the city in apparent preparation for a possible withdrawal but appear not to have decided to pull out.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was flat after U.S. stocks ended the previous session with mild gains. The index is up 2.9% so far this month.

Nvidia's plans to sell to Huawei have not been previously reported.

The marches have attracted huge crowds on a weekly basis since early January, when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government took aim at the Supreme Court.

Public alcohol consumption is frowned upon in mainly Muslim Iraq but beverages can be readily purchased from liquor stores, many of them run by Christians or other non-Muslims.

A print of Salvador Dali's famed melting clocks hung prominently on the outside wall of his damaged shop, alongside tapestries of a large mosque and another depicting Jesus leading a flock of sheep to water.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sought on Sunday to soften international outcry over a call by a far-right member of his cabinet for a flashpoint Palestinian village to be "erased", saying those remarks had been "inappropriate".

The university ban is one of several restrictions imposed on women since the Taliban stormed back to power in August 2021 and has sparked global outrage -- including across the Muslim world.