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The far-right minister said he will approve 3,000 new homes in the controversial E1 area project, hailing it as ‘Zionism at its best’.

Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has announced he will approve thousands of housing units in a highly controversial and long-delayed illegal settlement project in the occupied West Bank, saying the move “buries the idea of a Palestinian state”.

In a statement on Wednesday, Smotrich announced his intention to approve tenders to…

Russia accuses popular messaging apps of facilitating crime and sabotage as Moscow’s online restrictions tighten amid war in Ukraine.

Russia has announced restrictions on voice calls made on the WhatsApp and Telegram messaging apps, the latest moves by Moscow to tighten its control over the internet.

The curb on calls is set to impact WhatsApp’s estimated 96 million monthly users in Russia and Telegram’s more than 89 million users, according to Russian media monitoring service…

The United States has announced it is revoking the visas of Brazilian, African and Caribbean officials over their ties to Cuba’s programme that sends doctors abroad, which Washington has described as “forced labour”.

The US named two Brazilian Ministry of Health officials, Mozart Julio Tabosa Sales and Alberto Kleiman, who have had their visas revoked for working on Brazil’s Mais Medicos, or “More Doctors” programme, which was created in 2013.

In a statement on Wednesday, US…

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy arrived on Wednesday in Berlin for a virtual summit with European officials and United States President Donald Trump, convened by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz.

The call was meant to bring European leaders together with Trump before the planned August 15 Alaska meeting between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Those on the call included Merz and the US president, as well as US Vice President JD Vance, Zelenskyy, Italian Prime Minister…

Kim Yo Jong denies claims that Pyongyang has removed propaganda-blaring loudspeakers at the inter-Korean border.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s powerful sister has accused South Korea of misleading the public about ties between the Koreas, denying claims that Pyongyang removed some propaganda-blaring loudspeakers from their shared border.

In a statement carried by the state-controlled Korean Central News Agency on Thursday, Kim Yo Jong blasted the claim by South Korea’s military as an…

New Delhi, India – “My right eye swells up in the heat, so I stopped going to the landfill last year,” says 38-year-old Sofia Begum, wiping her watering eyes. Begum married at the age of 13, and for more than 25 years, she and her husband have picked through mountains of rubbish at Delhi’s Ghazipur landfill, scavenging for recyclable waste they can sell to scrap dealers.

Dressed in a ragged, green and yellow kurta, and sitting on a chair in a narrow lane in the middle of the slum…

Mass outcry from aid groups as Israel continues to block millions of dollars in aid supplies to starving Palestinians.

More than 100 aid groups have accused Israel of obstructing life-saving aid from entering Gaza, resulting in vast quantities of relief supplies remaining stranded in warehouses across Jordan and Egypt as more Palestinians starve.

Aid trucks have massed on Gaza’s borders amid Israel’s blockade of the famine-stricken territory, and new rules are being used by Israel to deny…

Here are the key events on day 1,267 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is how things stand on Thursday, August 14:

Fighting

• Russia’s Ministry of Defence said Russian forces had captured the settlements of Zatyshok and Zapovidne in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region.
• Ukraine’s military said its drones hit the Uniecha oil pumping station in Russia’s Bryansk region. “Damage and a large-scale fire were recorded in the area of the booster pumping station building,” the Ukrainian General…