WORLD

Israeli bombing killed dozens of people overnight in Gaza, the health ministry of the Hamas-run Palestinian territory said Thursday, as regional tensions have surged over the almost three-months-old war.

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.

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.

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.

Pilots on a Japan Airlines plane that burst into flames just after all 379 passengers and crew escaped had no "visual contact" with the other aircraft in the collision, the airline said Thursday.

The World Bank is working to slash how long it takes to get financing projects off the ground as part of a push to speed up and scale up the 79-year-old development lender, its president told AFP on Wednesday.

A New York judge on Wednesday began to unseal the identities of people linked in court documents to Jeffrey Epstein, the US financier who killed himself in 2019 as he awaited trial for sex crimes.

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.

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 struggled with heavy rain, blocked roads and aftershocks on Wednesday following a powerful earthquake that killed at least 64 people and left tens of thousands without power or running water.

Japanese investigators on Wednesday probed a near-catastrophic collision at Tokyo's Haneda Airport of a coast guard plane and a passenger jet that killed five people, with almost 400 others narrowly escaping a raging inferno.

The Taiwanese people "will resist" China's attempts to influence the island's January 13 election, frontrunner presidential candidate Lai Ching-te told AFP on Wednesday as he hit the campaign trial 10 days before the pivotal poll.

Israel kept bombing Gaza on Wednesday after the army warned it is ready for "any scenario" following a drone strike in Lebanon which killed the deputy leader of the Palestinian militant group Hamas, stoking fears of a regional escalation.

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.

Saleh al-Aruri, the senior Hamas official killed in a suspected Israeli strike in Lebanon, played a key role in building up the Palestinian group's military capabilities and its links with regional allies.

Somalia vowed on Tuesday to defend its territory by "any legal means" and recalled its ambassador to Ethiopia after Addis Ababa struck a controversial deal with the breakaway region of Somaliland.

Waiting in the cold, hundreds of residents of the earthquake-hit Japanese town of Shika stood in a queue to get rations of a suddenly scarce, but vital, commodity: drinking water.

Russia on Tuesday rained missiles on Ukraine's two main cities, killing four people and injuring dozens while 250,000 consumers in the capital region were left without power in near-freezing temperatures.

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.

Israeli forces battled Hamas militants amid the ruins of the heavily-bombed Gaza Strip on Tuesday as the war raging for almost three months piled new miseries on Palestinians in the besieged territory.

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

Britain's former prime minister Tony Blair has strongly denied an Israeli media report linking him to talks last week about the resettlement of Palestinians from Gaza in other countries.

Nobel peace laureate Muhammad Yunus was convicted on Monday of violating Bangladesh's labor laws in a case decried by his supporters as politically motivated.

President Xi Jinping said Sunday the Chinese economy had grown "more resilient and dynamic" in 2023, despite financial figures continuing to disappoint as the post-Covid recovery stalls.

DR Congo's President Felix Tshisekedi has won a second term in office after elections described as chaotic, and is now set to cement his authority in the impoverished central African nation.

German police arrested three people on Sunday over an alleged attack plot targeting the cathedral in Cologne on New Year's Eve.

A rebellious teen turned "woke" family man, Denmark's future king Crown Prince Frederik is the embodiment of the country's relaxed, liberal monarchy.

French President Emmanuel Macron called for unity in the country in his New Year's Eve address Sunday as it prepares for the 2024 Olympic Games, after a difficult year for his government.