WORLD

The entire world, including Ukraine, wants Russia to join global leaders at a planned second peace summit to end the war in Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelensky has told French media including AFP. With Russian forces gaining momentum on the front and aid from allies ebbing or in doubt, Zelensky has launched an ambitious diplomatic offensive to end the war grinding through its third year.

Several UAE-based businessmen have pledged money to help the Kerala government. MA Yusuff Ali, Chairman and Managing Director of LuLu Group, and B. Ravi Pillai, Chairman of the RP Group, have each donated around Dh2 million to the Kerala Chief Minister's Distress Relief Fund.

Passenger traffic at European airports returned to pre-Covid levels in the first half of the year as the sector finally "turned the corner" on the pandemic crisis, the main industry association said on Wednesday.

The killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in an air strike in Tehran Wednesday came as a "thunderbolt" to war-weary Gazans, with some expressing disappointment Iran was unable to "protect him".

The eurozone's annual inflation rate unexpectedly edged up in July due to rising energy costs, official data showed on Wednesday, leaving it still uncertain if the European Central Bank will cut interest rates in September.

The World Bank has approved a $1.5 billion financial package to support cash-strapped Ethiopia's economic reform programme after officials loosened curbs on the local currency.

Forced to formulate a new electoral strategy less than 100 days before the US presidential election, Donald Trump will take part in two campaign events on Wednesday, with new opponent Kamala Harris in his sights.

Australian children with potentially deadly peanut allergies will be offered life-saving treatment in a nationwide programme touted as a world first.

The Bank of Japan further unwound its massive monetary easing programme on Wednesday by hiking interest rates for only the second time in 17 years and indicating plans for more if the economy performs as officials expect.

Hamas said Wednesday its political leader Ismail Haniyeh was killed in an Israeli strike in Iran, where he was attending the swearing-in of the new president, and vowed the act "will not go unanswered".

The US Federal Reserve is highly unlikely to waver from its position of holding interest rates at a two-decade high on Wednesday, but could drop hints about a September start to rate cuts.

Sealed inside a habitat in Texas and cut off from the outside world for over a year, Kelly Haston was the commander of a first-of-its-kind simulation for NASA to prepare for a future mission to Mars.

A young violinist accompanied thousands of opposition supporters belting out the Venezuelan national anthem Tuesday at a rally in Caracas, in a peaceful, but firm, rejection of an election victory claimed by strongman Nicolas Maduro.

US Vice President Kamala Harris, the presumptive Democratic election nominee, said Tuesday that Israel had a "right to defend itself" following a strike in Hezbollah's stronghold in southern Beirut.

Massive explosions on the Sun have triggered warnings of geomagnetic storms that could create dazzling auroras in the northern United States, Europe and southern Australia from Tuesday night.

Protests erupted in parts of Caracas Monday against the re-election victory claimed by Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro but disputed by the opposition and questioned internationally, AFP journalists observed.

Musk reposted a manipulated Harris campaign video in which a voiceover mimicking her calls President Joe Biden senile, and declares that she does not "know the first thing about running the country," adding that as a woman and a person of color, she is the "ultimate diversity hire."

Stung by shock rulings on abortion and other topics and by a series of scandals involving the conservative-dominated court, Biden called for 18-year term limits for justices and an enforceable ethics code.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez refused on Tuesday to answer question from a judge investigating alleged influence-peddling by his wife, a case that has put pressure on his fragile minority government.

Long in the authorities' sights, the 57-year-old former lawyer has already spent time in jail for supporting the jihadist Islamic State group.

The southern coastal state of Kerala has been battered by torrential downpours, with blocked roads into the disaster area at Wayanad district complicating relief efforts.

China has in recent years stepped up military and political pressures on democratic Taiwan, which Beijing claims as part of its territory.

The United States will provide $500 million in military funding to the Philippines, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Tuesday, as Washington boosts ties with Manila in the face of China's growing assertiveness.

Flowers, teddy bears and tributes were left near the scene of Monday's stabbing spree at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in Southport, near Liverpool, that also saw two adults and six children critically injured and three more children hurt.

Ukraine on Monday urged the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross to investigate an attack on a prison in Russian-occupied Ukraine that killed dozens two years ago.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni hailed China as an "important interlocutor" in managing global tensions Monday as she met President Xi Jinping.

French authorities have arrested an activist belonging to an ultra-left movement at a site belonging to national rail operator SNCF, days after sabotage attacks paralysed the network at the start of the Olympic Games, a police source said Monday.

An Indian soldier died fighting with Russian forces in Ukraine, one of his relatives said Monday, the fifth confirmed death so far of an Indian citizen in the conflict.

Finance minister Rachel Reeves will on Monday claim Britain is "broke and broken" when she reveals the findings of an assessment into the country's public finances ahead of a forthcoming budget.