World news

World news

Australia have been handed the worst possible conclusion to their World Cup warmup, suffering their heaviest T20 international defeat in a third successive morale-sapping capitulation to Pakistan. Still wounded from a 90-run defeat 24 hours earlier at Lahore's Gaddafi Stadium their worst loss to Pakistan it only got even more dire for Mitch Marsh's side on Sunday as they were spun to a record-breaking 111-run loss on the same ground.

A spate of recent attacks has amplified fears among the country's religious minorities ahead of the February 12 vote, even though the government insists most incidents have been ordinary crimes. Dhaka, Bangladesh Sukumar Pramanik, a Hindu teacher in Rajshahi city about 250km (155 miles) from Bangladesh's capital, Dhaka says the country's upcoming national election could be his final test of trust in politics.

El Mezquital is neither a neighborhood nor a district. It started out as one, but now it's a motley patchwork of gray houses and corrugated metal roofs on the outskirts of Guatemala City. From here, the capital's buildings appear in the distance as tiny lights, as unattainable as green spaces, shopping malls, or health centers. Old yellow school buses burst noisily down the main street, belching smoke and carrying silent residents who travel with their cell phones hidden away.

Today in Florida, the Russian Special Envoy Kirill Dmitriev held productive and constructive meetings as part of the US mediation effort toward advancing a peaceful resolution of the Ukrainian conflict, Witkoff posted on X. We are encouraged by this meeting that Russia is working toward securing peace in Ukraine. He said the US treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner and White House senior adviser Josh Gruenbaum also attended the talks.

Email sent to US sex offender Jeffrey Epstein in 2011 outlines what the sender described as financial and legal opportunities in Libya. A newly released document shows that an associate of late US financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein had outlined plans to pursue access to Libya's frozen state assets, including seeking potential support from former British and Israeli intelligence officials.

China's drive to modernize its military to rival the US armed forces is running parallel with an aggressive purge of its senior leaders. The People's Liberation Army has been repeatedly shaken by a massive anti-corruption campaign led by Chinese leader Xi Jinping. Now, the military leadership is under renewed scrutiny after one of China's most senior generals was placed under investigation.

Three prominent Church of England bishops have accused the UK government of contributing to a culture of impunity in which Israel has accelerated its de facto annexation of the West Bank. Guli Francis-Dehqani, the bishop of Chelmsford, Rachel Treweek, the bishop of Gloucester, and Graham Usher, the bishop of Norwich, visited Palestinian Christian communities in the occupied West Bank last week.

French IT giant Capgemini said on Sunday it was selling its subsidiary working for the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency amid international controversy over the deaths of two people in ICE operations. Capgemini, which operates in about 50 countries and is one of France's largest listed companies, held an extraordinary board meeting this weekend after being the subject of questions in parliament and calls for transparency from the government.

Israel says it will terminate the humanitarian operations in Gaza of Doctors Without Borders, known by its French acronym MSF, after it failed to provide a list of its Palestinian staff, further depriving Palestinians in the besieged enclave of life-saving assistance. In December, Israel announced it would prevent 37 aid organisations, including MSF, from working in Gaza from March 1 for failing to submit detailed information about their Palestinian employees, drawing widespread condemnation from NGOs and the United Nations.

Iran's supreme leader accuses the US of aiming to seize his country's oil and natural gas resources. Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has warned the United States that any attack on his country would result in a regional war as US President Donald Trump amasses military assets in the Middle East. They should know that if they start a war this time, it will be a regional war, the supreme leader was quoted as saying by Iranian state news agencies on Sunday.

I lived in Argentina in the mid-1980s, just after the fall of the brutal military dictatorship that ruled from 1976 to 1983. The country was taking its first, shaky steps back toward democracy. It was a time of great hope, but also of grave uncertainty - because while the generals were gone, the political culture that enabled them remained. Like most of the nation, I was captivated by the pioneering trials of the military generals that promised to restore justice.

India is set to spend a record amount on infrastructure and defense, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman told parliament on Sunday. New Delhi plans to invest $133 billion (112 billion) in infrastructure and $85 billion on defence an increase of around 9% and 15%, respectively, compared to last year's budget. The finance minister also announced that the government will scale up manufacturing across seven strategic sectors. They include pharmaceuticals, semiconductors, rare earth magnets, chemicals, capital goods, textiles and sports goods.

On Feb. 1, 2003, the space shuttle Columbia broke apart as it re-entered the Earth's atmosphere, killing all seven crew members: commander Rick Husband; pilot William McCool; payload commander Michael Anderson; mission specialists Kalpana Chawla, David Brown and Laurel Clark; and payload specialist Ilan Ramon. Also on this date: In 1865, abolitionist John S. Rock became the first Black lawyer admitted to the bar of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Newly disclosed U.S. government files on Jeffrey Epstein have prompted the resignation of a top official in Slovakia and revived calls in Britain for a former prince to share what he knows with authorities about Epstein's links to powerful individuals around the world. The fallout comes just a day after the Justice Department began releasing a massive trove of files that offers more details about Epstein's interactions with the rich and famous after he served time for sex crimes in Florida.

Ministers from the US, EU, UK, Japan, Australia and New Zealand will meet in Washington this week to discuss a strategic alliance over critical minerals. The summit is being seen as a step to repair transatlantic ties fractured by a year of conflict with Donald Trump and pave the way for other alliances to help countries de-risk from China, including one centred on steel.

In early January, widespread demonstrations driven by economic hardship, political discontent and sustained foreign pressure posed one of the most serious domestic challenges Iran's leadership has faced in years. The unrest soon gave way to a sharpening regional standoff, as President Donald Trump ordered large US military deployments to the Middle East and issued warnings demanding that Iran curb its nuclear program and ballistic missile development.

In his disjointed speech at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland, Donald Trump once again lashed out against renewable forms of energy, the European Union and its Green Deal, which aims to transform the energy and mobility system to break dependence on fossil fuels, the main cause of climate change. Trump, like the European far-right, dismissed the accord, calling it a Green New Scam. But the truth is that, despite his attacks, renewables continued to grow in 2025 and set records, while fossil fuel consumption for electricity generation stagnated.

They were denied basic human rights and forced to endure extreme hardship. Official promises of free education and healthcare plus guaranteed jobs and housing had been a cruel mirage. And to their horror, they were prevented from travelling to Japan to visit the families they had left behind. But this week, after years of campaigning, four settlers who had escaped to Japan secured justice when a court in Tokyo ordered the North Korean government to pay each of them at least 20m yen in compensation.

This time last year, Greenland's prime minister, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, was better known on the global stage for his sporting achievements than international politics. For years he dominated the territory's badminton scene, winning the singles and doubles championships almost every year. He won several medals at the Island Games, earning himself a reputation for very competitive play on the court. As it turned out, that was useful preparation for his time in office.

At least one person was killed and 14 were injured in an explosion in the southern Iranian port of Bandar Abbas on Saturday, according to the Iranian news agency Tasnim. State television reported that the blast hit an eight-storey building, "destroying two floors, several vehicles, and shops" in the area of Moallem Boulevard in the city. Iran's official IRNA news agency quoted the crisis management director for Hormozgan province, Mehrdad Hassanzadeh, as saying the explosion's cause was under investigation.