WORLD

Ukraine on Thursday rejected as "absolute nonsense" suggestions it was involved in the 2022 sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines, which transported Russian gas to Europe via the Baltic Sea.

Ukraine on Thursday claimed fresh advances in its cross-border offensive into Russia, where it said it had seized over a thousand square kilometres, the biggest attack by a foreign army on Russian soil since World War II. Russia said it had recaptured a first village from Ukrainian forces in the Kursk region and announced it was sending "additional forces" to the neighbouring Belgorod region.

Palestinian Authority president Mahmud Abbas told a special session of the Turkish parliament on Thursday that he would travel to Gaza.

Once a day, Umm Omar picks up the phone and calls her late husband, humouring their four-year-old daughter who does not understand yet her father was killed early in the Gaza war.

Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe faces 38 challengers in polls next month, the election commission said Thursday after nominations closed, with ally-turned-rival Sajith Premadasa leading the pack.

New Zealand will shakeup its defense forces and "reset" its foreign policy to align with traditional allies, the country's prime minister said Thursday.

Pressure built for a Gaza ceasefire to be agreed at talks set to resume Thursday in Qatar to avert a wider war involving Iran, after months of fighting between Israel and Hamas militants.

Britain's economy grew 0.6 percent in the April-June period, a slight slowdown compared with the first three months of the year, official data showed on Thursday.

A mob wielding bamboo rods and plastic pipes beat several suspected supporters of Sheikh Hasina on Thursday, vowing to quash a rumoured rally for the ousted Bangladesh premier outside her childhood home.

The party of Thailand's billionaire ex-PM Thaksin Shinawatra meets on Thursday to choose a candidate for prime minister, a day after the kingdom's top court dismissed incumbent premier Srettha Thavisin over an ethics violation.

The lakeside mansion where Myanmar democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi spent years under house arrest was put up for auction for the second time on Thursday but once again attracted no bids, AFP reporters said.

Thailand's ruling party meets Thursday to choose a candidate for prime minister after a court dismissed incumbent Srettha Thavisin in an ethics case, deepening the kingdom's political uncertainty a week after the main opposition party was dissolved.

Even if Kylian Mbappe had not completed his long-awaited move to Real Madrid this summer they would still be widely tipped to retain La Liga.

Hundreds of Bangladeshi students wielding bamboo rods patrolled the site of a planned gathering Thursday of ousted premier Sheikh Hasina's supporters, vowing to quash any show of strength.

Taylor Swift will return to the stage in London on Thursday to end the European leg of her "Eras" tour, a week after her Vienna concerts were cancelled due to a suicide attack plot.

Kylian Mbappe enjoyed a "great night" as he struck on his Real Madrid debut to help his new side claim a record sixth UEFA Super Cup with a 2-0 win over Atalanta on Wednesday in Warsaw.

At least 1.4 million girls in Afghanistan have been denied access to secondary education since the Taliban returned to power in 2021, with the future of an entire generation now "in jeopardy", the United Nations' cultural agency said Thursday.

Lebanon's health ministry said Israeli strikes killed three people in the country's south on Wednesday, with Hezbollah announcing two of its fighters among the dead, the latest cross-border violence amid fears of a full-blown regional war.

A German military base was sealed off for several hours Wednesday as authorities investigated suspected sabotage while a NATO airbase in the country faced an attempted trespassing incident, officials said.

Marina and her family were used to hearing the distant boom of explosions from their village in Russia's Kursk region, just a few kilometres from the Ukrainian border.

France on Thursday remembers the 1944 Allied landings in Provence, an event overshadowed by the Normandy landings two months earlier, but still key to the World War II endgame in Europe.

Mohammed Abu al-Qumsan had just collected the birth certificates of his three-day-old twins when he received the news: his Gaza apartment had been bombed, killing the babies and their mother.

Six more bodies, including those of two children, were recovered on Wednesday from the site of a massive garbage landslide in the Ugandan capital Kampala, bringing the death toll so far to 30, police said.

Thailand's Constitutional Court sacked Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin on Wednesday, branding him dishonest in a ruling in an ethics case that throws the kingdom into fresh political turmoil.

Israeli air strikes targeted Gaza on Wednesday ahead of ceasefire talks that the United States hopes will stop Iran striking Israel in retaliation for the killing of a Hamas leader.

Japan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida was seen as a safe pair of hands when his party installed him three years ago, but he soon became a liability as scandals and inflation eroded his popularity.

Australia's Olympians returned home Wednesday and mounted a resolute defence of their breakdancing colleague against "awful" critics, comics and keyboard warriors.

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida announced Wednesday he will step aside next month, ending a three-year term plagued by low popularity ratings and a spluttering economy.

Blindfolded, handcuffed and bundled out of his secret prison for the first time in eight years, Bangladeshi barrister Ahmad Bin Quasem held his breath and listened for the sound of a cocked pistol.