World News

A Chinese aircraft carrier group led by the vessel Shandong sailed through the sensitive Taiwan Strait on Wednesday, Taiwan’s defense ministry said, amid heightened military tension over the island Beijing claims as its own territory.

The United Nations secretary general wants to introduce a worldwide digital identity document (ID) system linked to individuals’ bank accounts.

The arrival of 11 Ukrainian prisoners of war in Hungary freed by Russia in a church-mediated deal without Ukraine’s knowledge has led to tensions between Kyiv and Budapest.

China and Cuba are in talks over building a joint military training facility in northern Cuba that could lead to Beijing having permanently stationed troops close to the United States, thus also expanding the scope for espionage activity, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday. The facility would be located just 100 miles from the US mainland.

In further evidence of warm ties between Russia and Iran, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Overchuk announced this week that Moscow hopes to sign a free trade zone agreement with Iran and several other Eurasion countries by the end of the year, i24News reports.

A submersible used to take tourists to view the wreck of the doomed Titanic ship has gone missing in the Atlantic Ocean, sparking a search and rescue mission, officials say.

Austria was investigating three suspected Islamists Monday who were detained over allegedly planning to attack the annual LGBTQ+ Pride parade.

Pakistan was holding a day of mourning, and nine suspected human smugglers were to appear at a court in Greece after one of Europe’s worst migrant ship disasters killed hundreds, many of them Pakistanis.

After a decade of work, researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science say they have managed to create stem cell-derived human embryo models outside the uterus.

The Pentagon will send F-22 Raptor fighter jets to the Middle East in direct response to increasingly “unsafe” behavior by Russian aircraft in the skies over Syria, U.S. officials said Wednesday, marking the latest escalation of tensions between the nations.

Russian President Vladimir Putin says Russia has now moved tactical nuclear weapons into neighboring Belarus as African leaders visited Ukraine for peace talks that they also sought to continue in Russia on Saturday.

South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa has told Russia’s leader Vladimir Putin that the war in Ukraine must end as it impacts millions, including the African continent. He made the remarks while meeting Putin in the Russian city of St. Petersburg over the weekend as battles still raged in Ukraine, some 16 months after Russia’s military invasion of the country began.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met China’s Foreign Minister Qin Gang in Beijing as part of efforts to ease military and political tensions.

The secretary-general of the United Nations has unveiled a “Global Digital Compact” to police “hate and lies” about issues such as climate change.

Greek authorities said Thursday that more than 500 migrants, including many children, were believed to have died after their overloaded fishing boat capsized and sank off southern Greece.

Ukraine says it has regained control over vast swathes of territory in its counteroffensive against Russian forces. The announcement comes despite Moscow claiming Ukraine’s counterattack is faltering.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees announced in its Global Trends Report for 2022 that a record-breaking 110 million people around the world have now been displaced because of wars, persecution, or human rights violations, the Associated Press reports. The UNHCR report was published Wednesday.

Sweden is not yet able to join NATO as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced Wednesday he is not satisfied the Swedish government has been too lenient in its dealing with the separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), AP reports. Described by Erdogan as a terror group, the PKK has fought an insurgency in Turkey, and attempted a coup in 2016.

Following a similar decision by the United Kingdom earlier this year, the US has decided to send the Ukrainian military a shipment of depleted uranium munitions that are so dense they can penetrate Russia’s tank armor and give Ukraine a significant edge in fighting the Russian invasion, Insider reports. The Biden administration had delayed sending the ammunition as it weighed concerns about the environmental and health impact of depleted uranium.

England’s National Health Service (NHS) announced Friday that, following a review of its current gender incongruence services for children and young people, puberty blockers will no longer be routinely available to minors, but will only be dispensed as part of clinical research, BBC News reports.