World news

World news

India's form over the last two years has made them the most feared side in world cricket but for a while as they got their World Cup campaign under way the only dread was being experienced by their own fans as the USA threatened a humiliating upset. But for some missed chances, a hugely unfortunate injury and the brilliance of Suryakumar Yadav it might well have happened.

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

Five bronze towers soar 400 feet above Saadiyat Island, the ever-expanding cultural district just off the coast of Abu Dhabi. The structures-which recall the wings of a falcon, a highly prized symbol in the United Arab Emirates-are the architectural signature of the Zayed National Museum, which opened in December. Two weeks before, another vastinstitution, the Natural History Museum, debuted. They will be followed later this year by the most ambitious of all-the late Frank Gehry's Guggenheim Abu Dhabi.

The United States has given Ukraine and Russia a June deadline to reach an agreement to end the nearly four-year war, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said. The Americans are proposing the parties end the war by the beginning of this summer and will probably put pressure on the parties precisely according to this schedule, Zelenskyy told reporters in Kyiv on Friday, in comments embargoed until Saturday.

Cricket's global governing body hopes to persuade Pakistan to reverse decision to boycott India T20 World Cup fixtures. The International Cricket Council is in talks with the Pakistan Cricket Board to resolve the boycott of its T20 World Cup 2026 fixture against India on February 15. Any clash between archrivals India and Pakistan is one of the most lucrative in cricket, worth millions of dollars in broadcast, sponsoring and advertising revenue.

Demonstrations across Malawi's four main cities during the past week have achieved a delay in the introduction of a new tax regime that business owners claim will cripple their livelihoods. Tens of thousands had signed petitions which this week were presented to tax officials and on Monday thousands of small traders shut up shops and businesses to hold protest marches in Blantyre, Lilongwe, Zomba and Mzuzu.

After Pakistan announced their boycott of the forthcoming T20I World Cup match against India, the International Cricket Council (ICC) was quick to lament the position the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) had put fans in. [Pakistan's] decision is not in the interest of the global game or the welfare of fans worldwide, the ICC said in a release, before going on to make special mention of millions in Pakistan, who will now have no India fixture to anticipate.

One journalist, who spoke anonymously out of fear that being named would place more pressure on my family, said their father had been detained and warned by security forces that they were monitoring overseas journalists. They knew everything about me somehow, the journalist said. They said they know where I live. They even gave my father the address, the telephone number, where I'm sitting exactly in the newsroom.

Amid the commotion, Aamer Iqbal, a 50-year-old banker, took a deep breath and asked his daughter to let go of the kite she was helping to launch. It was the first time in nearly two decades that Iqbal was able to engage in an activity that had defined his childhood: the simple act of flying a kite.

The Winter Oympics opening ceremony arrived shrouded in mystery. There wasn't a lot of advance publicity about what might happen, beyond a list of musical performers, heavier on popular classical names including Andrea Bocelli and Lang Lang than pop stars and a quote from the event's creative lead and executive producer, Marco Balich, that it would eschew hi-tech and bling.

[Illegal ebikes] are a total menace on the road, the health minister, Mark Butler, said on Friday. Kids have done stupid things on bikes ever since the penny-farthing [but] the injuries that are coming into our hospital emergency departments are absolutely devastating. We've got to make sure we stop these things coming into the country [and] police are given the powers to crack down, to take them away, to crush them, to destroy them.

When one of the world's most secretive and far-reaching organizations offers to share how it sees the world, it's worth taking a peek. That's the thought I had when I dove into the CIA World Factbook for the first time as a young editor at CNN International in the early 2000s. If journalists aim to write the first draft of history, I figured, then the Factbook, culling data from Cabinet agencies and other official outlets, could be a reliable primary source.

Ziaul Haque Tanin had planned his February around the T20 World Cup. The former first-class cricketer turned sports-goods entrepreneur from Thakurgaon, in northwestern Bangladesh, had lined up a trip combining business, family visits and cricket fandom. list of 4 itemsend of list Tanin had secured a premium hospitality ticket at the famed Eden Gardens cricket stadium in Kolkata, where Bangladesh would take on Italy on February 9.

On Thursday 8 January, Iran went dark. In the midst of massive national protests, the government shut down the internet, phone calls, and almost all communication out of the country. That evening a violent crackdown began. In some cities, government forces opened fire on crowds, killing thousands according to some estimates, possibly tens of thousands in two days of bloodshed.

The relationship with China, and my personal relationship with President Xi, is an extremely good one, and we both realize how important it is to keep it that way, Trump wrote in his post on Wednesday. The two leaders were understood to have discussed a planned trip by the US president to Beijing later this year, Trump said, adding that he was looking forward to it.

Across history, the relocation of capital cities has often been associated with moments of political rupture, regime change, or symbolic nation-building. From Brasília to Islamabad, new capitals were frequently conceived as instruments of centralized power, territorial control, or ideological projection. In recent decades, however, a different set of drivers has begun to shape these decisions. Rather than security or representation alone, contemporary capital relocations are increasingly tied to structural pressures such as demographic concentration, infrastructural saturation, environmental risk, and long-term resource management.

Mexico's President Claudia Sheinbaum has announced that her country will ship humanitarian aid to Cuba, as she continues to negotiate with United States President Donald Trump to relax the oil blockade he has imposed on the island nation. Speaking on Friday from Michoacan, Sheinbaum added that her government would be delivering the aid imminently. list of 3 itemsend of list We are planning to send this aid, if not this weekend, then on Monday at the latest, she said. It is mainly food and some other supplies that they have requested.