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An earthquake in Tajikistan killed five people, the Tajik emergency situations committee said on Saturday, with the epicentre of the quake 165 kilometres northeast of the capital city of Dushanbe. The quake of magnitude 5.9 struck 27 km (17 miles) east of Rasht in Tajikistan, the European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC) …

U.S. President Joe Biden increased pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday to move against ransomware groups operating in Russia, warning the United States is prepared to respond if cyber hacks are not stopped. The two leaders held an hour-long phone call on Friday, their first since they discussed …

A suicide car bomb targeting a government convoy exploded at a busy junction in Somalia’s capital on Saturday, killing at least eight people, an eyewitness said. Abdiasis Abu Musab, military operations spokesperson for the al-Qaida-linked militant group al-​Shabaab, told Reuters it was responsible for Saturday’s attack. The group, which wants …

South African police said on Saturday that 27 people had been arrested over violent protests linked to former president Jacob Zuma’s imprisonment. Protests raged this week in parts of KwaZulu-Natal (KZN), Zuma’s home province after the former president handed himself over to police to serve a 15-month jail term for …

Australia’s New South Wales state reported its biggest daily rise in locally acquired coronavirus infections this year on Saturday, with authorities warning that worse may yet to come for Sydney, which is in a three-week hard lockdown. There were 50 new cases of community transmission in the country’s most populous …

According to early information, the 18-year-old deceased victim of the shooting was known to the police for drug trafficking. An unnamed assailant fatally shot one, and stabbed three other people on 9 July near a nursery school in the 11th arrondissement of Marseille, according to reports on the BFM channel …

Militants killed at least 45 people in an attack on the town of Faru in northwest Nigeria, residents and a hospital worker said on Friday. Such violence has increasingly become a part of everyday life in the region, with the Nigerian government and security forces showing little ability to stem …

A 6.0 quake followed by more than 60 aftershocks — including a 5.2 shaker — struck Thursday afternoon in California, close to the Nevada border but was felt in the Bay Area. The first quake hit at 3:49 p.m., registering a magnitude 6.0 in Coleville (Mono County), followed by a …

An earthquake of magnitude 5.6 struck near Minahasa, Sulawesi, off the coast of Indonesia on Friday, the European Mediterranean Seismological Center (EMSC) said. The quake was at a depth of 102 kilometers (63.4 miles), EMSC said.

Hundreds of migrants rescued in the central Mediterranean disembarked on Friday in the southern Italian town of Augusta, in Sicily, after Rome-based maritime authorities agreed to give their ship a port. The Ocean Viking vessel, operated by SOS Mediterranee, carried 572 people, including around 180 minors, after picking them up …

Pfizer and BioNTech say that a third COVID-19 booster dose given about six months after the second shot improves vaccine efficacy against new coronavirus variants and that this is backed by initial data from their study on booster shots. While the COVID-19 vaccine remains 95% effective in preventing serious cases, …

A South African high court on Friday tossed out a last-ditch legal bid by former president Jacob Zuma to avoid jail for refusing to appear before graft investigators. The ruling marks the latest judgement in a long-running drama to go against Zuma, although it does not change his situation as …

Deforestation of the Brazilian Amazon reached a record in June for the fourth consecutive month, according to official data released Friday. A total of 1,062 square kilometers of forest was destroyed — an area almost the size of the city of Rio de Janeiro. This was up from 1,043 km2 …

A Palestinian prisoner is finally released from Israeli custody and transferred to hospital after a 65-day hunger strike to protest the so-called administrative detention, which allows prisoners to be held without charge or trial. Amjad al-Najjar, a spokesman for the Palestinian Prisoners Club, said 28-year-old Ghadanfar Abu Atwan, who has …

Two weeks following a seaside condominium tower collapsed just north of Miami,Florida rescuers have said that there are no survivors in the tragic incident. The rescuers said on Thursday their mission was no longer one of rescue, but had shifted to recovery. There were no survivors, Reuters reported. “My sister …

South Africa’s mines recorded 32 deaths in the first half of 2021 compared with 24 during the same period in 2020, the mines ministry said on Thursday, continuing a spike in deaths which began last year in some of the world’s deepest mines. South African mines, some of which are …

Acute food insecurity has soared 40% this year as recent food price hikes have exacerbated existing pressures from conflict, climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) says. Defined as any lack of food that threatens lives, livelihoods or both, acute food insecurity is impacting, …

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says the withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan means the United States has recognized the failure of its two-decades-long mission in the country. “The United States is not merely withdrawing its troops from Afghanistan, it is doing that having actually recognized the failure of its …

US senator and a candidate in the 2020 US presidential election, Bernie Sanders believes the American society is “oligarchic” where majority of wealth is accumulated by a handful of affluent elites. In a Twitter post Thursday, the US senator from Vermont said the “top 1% owns more wealth than the …

At least three people have been killed, 20 others injured and many are feared trapped after a massive fire raged through a factory in Bangladesh, officials said on Friday. The cause of the fire, which originated at a ground floor of a multi-storey building of the juice factory on Thursday …