WORLD

Japanese Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa paid a surprise visit to Kyiv Sunday where she said Tokyo was "determined" to keep supporting Ukraine, as the second anniversary of Moscow's invasion nears.

Israel pounded Gaza on Sunday as its war with Hamas raged into a fourth month, while top US diplomat Antony Blinken decried the "tragedy" of civilian deaths and warned the conflict threatened the wider region.

Hampered by bad weather and damaged roads, Japanese rescuers searched Friday for 222 people still missing four days after a devastating earthquake as the death toll approached 100.

More than a thousand mourners attended the funeral in Beirut on Thursday of Hamas number two Saleh al-Aruri who was killed in a Lebanon strike blamed on Israel.

A teenager armed with a handgun and shotgun killed a fellow student and wounded five other people at a high school in the midwestern US state of Iowa on Thursday, authorities said.

North Korea has provided Russia with ballistic missiles and missile launchers that were used in recent attacks on Ukraine in a major escalation of support for Moscow, the White House said Thursday.

The United States on Thursday added Azerbaijan to a watchlist on religious freedom, following fears for Christian heritage after the country seized back an ethnic Armenian enclave.

Japanese workers began clearing the burnt wreckage of a passenger jet on Friday, three days after a near-catastrophic collision with a coast guard plane at Tokyo's Haneda Airport.

Israel's defence minister has laid out for the first time preliminary plans for the post-war administration of Gaza, saying neither Israel nor Hamas will rule the Palestinian territory after hostilities there conclude.

North Korea fired an artillery barrage near two South Korean border islands Friday, Seoul's defence ministry said, prompting a live-fire drill from the South Korean military.

The chief of Lebanon's powerful Hezbollah movement, Hassan Nasrallah, warned Israel on Wednesday against waging war on Lebanon, a day after a strike killed Hamas's deputy leader in the southern Beirut stronghold of Hezbollah.

After landing, smoke filled the cabin and flames licked the windows, but the Japan Airlines crew got all 367 passengers safely off the aircraft in an orderly fashion -- and just in time.

Sweden on Wednesday recorded its coldest January night in 25 years, with a reading of minus 43.6 degrees Celsius in the far north as a cold snap hit the Nordics.

Argentina's government said Wednesday that three foreigners, citizens of Syria and Lebanon, had been arrested under suspicion of planning a "terrorist act", as the country hosts a major Jewish sporting event.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will leave Thursday on his fourth crisis trip to the Middle East, an official said, as fears mount that the Israel-Hamas conflict will spiral into a regional war.

More than 50 people were reported missing Thursday as Japanese rescuers battled to reach hundreds still cut off from help three days after a devastating earthquake left at least 78 dead.

Kyiv's mobile air defences have enough ammunition to withstand a few more powerful attacks, but then will need more Western aid, a senior military commander said Wednesday.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will head Thursday to the Middle East as fears mount that Israel's war in Gaza will spread across the region, following deadly blasts in Iran and the killing of a Hamas leader in Lebanon.

Twelve nations led by the United States on Wednesday jointly warned Yemen's Huthi rebels of unspecified consequences unless they immediately halt sea attacks that are increasingly disrupting global commerce.

Hospital doctors in England on Wednesday began their longest consecutive strike in the seven-decade history of Britain's National Health Service (NHS).

South Korean opposition leader Lee Jae-myung narrowly escaped death when he was stabbed in the neck, a party lawmaker said Wednesday, as police were granted a warrant to search his assailant's property.

The Israeli army has said it is "prepared for any scenario" after a strike in Beirut that killed Hamas's deputy chief, stoking fears the war in the Gaza Strip could boil over into wider regional conflict.

The president of Harvard University resigned Tuesday after coming under ferocious attack over plagiarism accusations and her response to anti-Semitism on campus amid the Israel-Hamas conflict.

Japanese rescuers scrambled to search for survivors Wednesday as authorities warned of landslides from heavy rain after a powerful earthquake that killed at least 62 people.

A Chinese exchange student who fell victim to a "cyber kidnapping" scam in which his parents were extorted for $80,000, was found alive but "cold and scared" in a tent in the Utah wilderness, police said.

Record numbers of migrants crossing the hostile Darien gap jungle in 2023 included 120,000 minors, the Panama government said Monday.

Turkey on Tuesday announced the detention of 33 people suspected of planning abductions and spying on behalf of Israel's Mossad intelligence service.

A Japan Airlines plane burst into flames on the runway of Tokyo's Haneda Airport on Tuesday after apparently colliding with a coast guard aircraft, media reports said.

Shelling and missile strikes rocked the length of the Gaza Strip overnight into Tuesday, after Israel's army warned its war against the territory's Hamas rulers will last through 2024.