United States lawmakers were set to meet Taiwan's president on Monday days after China reacted to a similar visit by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi with huge military drills that raised fears of conflict. . Pelosi has stood by her visit but President Joe Biden said the US military was opposed to the trip by his fellow Democrat who is second in line to the presidency after the vice president.
The Taliban marked the first anniversary of their return to power in Afghanistan with a national holiday Monday, following a turbulent year that saw women's rights crushed and a humanitarian crisis worsen.. While Afghans acknowledge a decline in violence since the Taliban seized power, the humanitarian crisis has left many helpless.
South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol said Monday he will offer a wide-ranging aid package to the North in return for denuclearisation, a deal long seen as a non-starter for Pyongyang.. But calling denuclearisation "essential" for lasting peace on the peninsula, Yoon on Monday detailed a large-scale aid plan that would include food and energy as well as help in modernising infrastructure such as ports, airports and hospitals.
An explosion that set off a fire at a market in the Armenian capital Yerevan on Sunday killed three people and injured dozens of others, officials announced.. "After preliminary data, an explosion happened which set off a fire," said the emergency situations ministry in a statement, giving a toll of three dead and around 40 people hospitalised.
Israeli air strikes on Syria killed three soldiers and wounded three others on Friday, state media said, after the latest such incident in the war-torn country.. On Friday, Israeli shelling wounded two civilians in southern Syria near the occupied Golan Heights, according to state media.
Kenyans prayed for peace Sunday as they waited anxiously for the final outcome of the presidential election, with the two frontrunners almost neck and neck, according to partial official results.. Worshippers in Odinga's stronghold of Kisumu also prayed for a peaceful outcome, with bishop Washington Ogonyo Ngede telling his 300-strong flock: "Don't let politics divide us.
Iraq's judiciary said Sunday it lacks the authority to dissolve parliament as demanded by populist Shiite Muslim cleric Moqtada Sadr, who is engaged in an escalating standoff with political rivals.. Followers of Sadr, in defiance of his Shiite rivals of the pro-Iran Coordination Framework, have been staging a sit-in protest at Iraq's parliament.
Five people died and 16 were injured in an explosion Sunday in the Ecuadoran port city of Guayaquil in an attack the government blamed on organized crime, officials said.. Interior Minister Patricio Carrillo said "organized-crime mercenaries," long involved in illicit drug traffic, were "now attacking with explosives."
Salman Rushdie is on the "road to recovery," his agent said Sunday, two days after a shocking assault at a literary event left the British author hospitalized on a ventilator with multiple stab wounds. . "He's off the ventilator, so the road to recovery has begun," Andrew Wylie said in a statement sent to multiple media outlets.
The first UN-chartered vessel set to transport grain from Ukraine under a deal to relieve a global food crisis was loaded with 23,000 tonnes of wheat on Sunday and is ready to depart, Kyiv announced.. The first commercial ship carrying grain left on August 1 and in total, 16 vessels have departed from Ukraine since the July deal, according to Kyiv.
