WORLD

Sudan's warring factions are not taking advantage of talks initiated by the United States and Saudi Arabia meant to yield a permanent ceasefire as they originally agreed, a senior U.S.

But the arrest the same day of a Serb identified by the Kosovo Albanian interior minister as an organiser of assaults on NATO peacekeepers during Serb unrest last month stirred fresh anger in the volatile region.

A week ago, he was growing vegetables and fruit and grazing his cows. Now his land in the Mykolaiv region is deep under murky green water.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told US President Joe Biden at the White House on Tuesday that Western-backed Ukraine is "making progress" in its offensive to push Russia back from occupied territories.

President Vladimir Putin claimed Tuesday that Ukraine's casualties in its much-anticipated counteroffensive were ten times higher than Moscow's even as Kyiv said it was making gains and "moving forward".

U.S. negotiators are counting on Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's White House visit on June 22 to break the log jam.

Intissar was only 10 years old when she was forced to undergo genital mutilation, but 30 years later, one clinic is offering help for some of the millions of Egyptian women affected by the still-rampant practice.

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said on Tuesday that Russian tactical nuclear weapons would be physically deployed on the territory of Belarus "in several days" and that he had the facilities to host longer-range missiles too if ever needed.

Russian strikes early Tuesday on the hometown of Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky killed ten people, as Moscow said it had captured Western armoured vehicles from Kyiv's forces.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Monday he is concerned that Russia will on July 17 quit a deal allowing the safe wartime export of grain and fertilizers from three Ukrainian Black Sea ports.

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi began a rare diplomatic tour of Latin America on Monday with a first stop in Caracas, where he said his country and Venezuela are "friends" with "common enemies."

India threatened to shut down Twitter in the country unless it complied with orders to restrict accounts critical of the handling of farmer protests, co-founder Jack Dorsey said, an accusation Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government called an "outright lie".

At least six people were killed in a Russian missile strike on an apartment building in Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's hometown of Kryvyi Rih on Tuesday, officials said.

Four boys drowned after venturing into rough seas in Mumbai as Indian authorities began evacuating people from western coastal areas on Tuesday, two days before a powerful cyclone approaches Gujarat state and neighbouring southern Pakistan.

A team of experts last month started inspecting conditions aboard the vessel and kickstarted preparations for the operation intended to avert a major oil spill.

A Russian missile strike killed at least six civilians in an apartment building in Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's hometown on Tuesday, while Moscow's forces yielded ground in the early stages of a Ukrainian counteroffensive.

Ukraine said on Monday its troops had recaptured seven villages from Russian forces along an approximately 100-km (60-mile) front in the southeast since starting its long-anticipated counteroffensive last week.

Ukrainian pilots could begin training to fly U.S.-manufacture F-16 fighter jets as soon as this summer, the Dutch defense minister has told Reuters, a first step toward supplying Kyiv with a powerful, long-term capability in its war with Russia.

The Iran-backed Hezbollah and its closest allies are set to torpedo an attempt by rivals to elect a senior IMF official as Lebanese president this week, in a tussle that underlines its decisive sway and the dim prospects for reviving the crumbling state.

The draining of one of Europe's largest reservoirs as a result of the destruction of the Kakhovka dam has revealed submerged military objects that offer a reminder of wars past and present on Ukrainian soil.

Ukraine on Monday said it had retaken seven villages and made small gains in a "tough" counter-offensive against Russian forces that France said could last months.

During the visit the two countries signed a memorandum of understanding to expand cooperation in petrochemicals with a view to carrying out joint projects, building on their already-close cooperation in oil.

The official did not deny media reports of recent U.S.-Iranian contacts but rather said that suggestions they were about an interim nuclear deal were inaccurate.

Markets were mixed in Asia on Tuesday, with investors awaiting the release of key US inflation data later in the day that could play a big role in the Federal Reserve's keenly anticipated interest rate decision.

As the world's top oil exporter, Saudi Arabia's bilateral relationship with the world's biggest energy consumer is anchored by hydrocarbon ties. But cooperation between Riyadh and Beijing has also deepened in security and sensitive tech amid a warming of political ties - to the concern of the U.S. The two nations' momentum has also raised prospects for a successful conclusion to negotiations for a free trade deal between China and the Saudi Arabia-dominated Gulf Cooperation Council.

Russia's invasion has thrown up huge challenges for Ukraine's coal mines, from the danger posed by air strikes to the departure of miners for the front to fight.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan appointed former Wall Street executive Hafize Gaye Erkan as central bank governor on Friday, signalling a possible shift from his unconventional policies to fight soaring inflation.

Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas will make a state visit to China next week, Beijing said Friday, after China expressed readiness to help facilitate Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

Fighting raged Friday in Ukraine's southern Zaporizhzhia region, a Russian official said, with observers seeing the combat as the possible start of Kyiv's long-expected offensive.