Israeli politicians battling to unseat veteran Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were racing against the clock yesterday in talks to build a “change” coalition spanning the political spectrum.

Prominent Pakistani political TV talk-show host Hamid Mir was suspended from his regular program on Monday, his media group Geo News network said, following comments he made last week against the powerful military for its role in media censorship.

The World Health Organization (WHO) yesterday said it has approved a Covid-19 vaccine made by drugmaker Sinovac Biotech for emergency use listing, paving the way for a second Chinese shot to be used in poor countries.

China reported the world’s first human infection of the H10N3 bird flu strain yesterday but said the risk of it spreading widely among people was low.

Veteran Philippine journalist Maria Ressa has had a cyber libel charge against her dismissed, lawyers involved in the case said yesterday, in a rare legal win for the key critic of the country’s President Rodrigo Duterte.

A fire aboard a cargo ship off Sri Lanka carrying hundreds of tonnes of chemicals, plastics and cosmetics was finally extinguished yesterday after a 13-day international operation, the navy said.

A decade of war in Syria has left nearly half a million people dead, a war monitor said yesterday, in a new toll that includes 100,000 recently confirmed deaths.

The US military will hand over its main Bagram Air Base to Afghan forces in about 20 days, an official said yesterday, as Washington presses on with withdrawing the last of its troops from the country.

China will allow couples to have three children after a census showed its population is rapidly ageing, state media said yesterday, further unwinding four decades of strict family planning controls in the world’s most populous nation.

Gunmen kidnapped scores of children from an Islamic seminary in central Nigeria, officials said, the latest mass abduction to hit Africa’s most populous nation.

Hong Kong police have arrested an elderly democracy activist as she made a solo demonstration over China’s deadly Tiananmen crackdown in a vivid illustration of the zero protest tolerance now wielded by authorities in the financial hub.

The employers of an American journalist detained by Myanmar authorities said yesterday they were yet to receive any information on his whereabouts or wellbeing, a week after he was detained. Managing editor of news outlet Frontier Myanmar Danny Fenster, a US citizen, was detained on May 24 as he attempted to board a plane to leave military-ruled Myanmar.

Amid an ongoing tussle between the Centre and West Bengal government, state chief secretary Alapan Bandyopadhyay yesterday retired from his post and joined chief minister Mamata Banerjee as her chief adviser.

World Health Organization members yesterday agreed to strengthen the global body at the heart of the pandemic response and give it more secure and flexible funding to better deal with future outbreaks.

Political rivals of Israel’s right-wing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu raced yesterday to forge a diverse coalition to oust the country’s longest-serving leader.

The US spied on top politicians in Europe, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, from 2012 to 2014 with the help of Danish intelligence, Danish and European media reported on Sunday.

The US National Security Agency (NSA) used a partnership with Denmark's foreign intelligence unit to spy on senior officials of neighbouring countries, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Danish state broadcaster DR said.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau asked Sunday that flags at all federal buildings be flown at half-staff to honor more than 200 children whose remains have been found buried at what was once Canada’s largest Indigenous residential school — one of the institutions that held children taken from families across the nation.

Greece reacted angrily on Sunday to a statement by Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu that described members of a Muslim minority in northern Greece as Turkish and that said they were not accorded full civic rights.

Two people were killed and at least 20 injured yesterday when three shooters fired indiscriminately into a crowd outside a concert in Miami, Florida,