Saudi authorities have set a dress code for Muslim women while performing Umrah or lesser pilgrimage at the Grand Mosque in Mecca. The kingdom’s Ministry of Hajj and Umrah said female worshippers are entitled to wear the attire they like during the rituals, provided they comply

Emergency teams on Friday (Sep 15) kept up their search for the thousands still posted as missing from the tsunami-sized flash flood that swept the Libyan port city of Derna, killing at least 4,000 people. The enormous surge of water burst two upstream dams late last Sunday and reduced

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has appointed five women to his cabinet, the highest since 2014, as part of a ministerial reshuffle he hopes will boost his poor approval ratings. One of the notable additions to the cabinet is Yoko Kamikawa, who became Japan’s first female

Russia’s Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un gifted each other rifles when they met at a space centre in Russia week, the Kremlin said, while the Russian leader also presented his counterpart from Pyongyang with a glove from a cosmonaut’s space suit.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has warned grocery chains that they could be hit with new taxes if they do not take steps to control rising food prices. Trudeau said the heads of the five largest supermarket chains, including Walmart and Costco, would be asked to come up with a

President Joe Biden's son, Hunter, has been criminally charged with three counts of lying when buying a firearm, after a proposed plea deal collapsed. The indictment marks the first time the child of a sitting president has been criminally prosecuted. A planned plea bargain to

The Taliban on Wednesday welcomed China’s new ambassador to Afghanistan, with Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi saying the nomination of Zhao Sheng was a “significant step with a significant message”. It is the first time since the Taliban takeover in 2021 that an

The United States on Wednesday approved a $5 billion sale to South Korea of F-35s, top-of-the-line fighter-jets with stealth capacity, as tensions soar with North Korea. The State Department informed Congress that it had given the green light to the sale of 25 of the aircraft made by

The UN human rights expert for Myanmar on Wednesday called on the United States to further tighten sanctions on the country’s military rulers to include their main revenue source, the state oil and gas enterprise. UN Special Rapporteur Tom Andrews, a former member of the US

North Korea's Kim Jong Un is continuing his highly scrutinised visit to Russia, following talks with Vladimir Putin over a suspected arms deal. The pair met on Wednesday at the Vostochny space centre after Mr Kim arrived in his private armoured train. Mr Putin later said they

Russian President Vladimir Putin has accepted an invitation from Kim Jong Un to visit North Korea after the two leaders held their first face-to-face summit in four years. Kim is in Russia’s far east as Putin looks to reinforce alliances amid Russia’s ongoing war in

Residents of the devastated Libyan city of Derna desperately searched for missing relatives as rescue workers appealed for more body bags, after a catastrophic flood that killed thousands of people and swept many out to sea. Swathes of the Mediterranean city were obliterated by a

The Covid-19 pandemic caused a sharp slowdown in the fight to end child poverty, with 333 million children still living in extreme poverty, according to a report from UNICEF. The report from the United Nations Children's Fund and the World Bank found that the pandemic led to the

At least 1,457 displaced persons have died or disappeared in the Americas in 2022, the UN's International Organization for Migration (IOM) said on Tuesday. With 686 documented deaths and disappearances, the US-Mexico border makes up for over half of the cases. While this is a

North Korea has fired at least one “unidentified ballistic missile” off its east coast, according to South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff. There were no immediate details on Wednesday’s launch with the JCS saying it needed further analysis. Japan’s Coast

Emergency workers uncovered hundreds of bodies in the wreckage of Libya’s eastern city of Derna, and it is feared the toll could spiral, with 10,000 people still reported missing after floodwaters from Storm Daniel smashed through dams and washed away entire neighbourhoods. More

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has finally taken off after being stranded in India for over 36 hours. But he is going to land in Canada amid backlash and criticism over his domestic policies and diplomatic failure at the recently held G20 Summit in India. The mood in Canada is

Over 100,000 children have been affected by the powerful earthquake that struck Morocco last Friday, the UN Children's Agency (UNICEF) has said. ''While UNICEF doesn’t yet know the exact number of children killed and injured, the latest estimates from 2022 indicate

The five-member delegation arrived on Sunday, an Israeli official told AFP, for the meeting to update UNESCO's world heritage list of cultural and historic sites. "We are happy to be here -- it's a good first step," said the official, who did not want to be named

At least six people have been killed and dozens wounded in clashes in a Palestinian refugee camp in southern Lebanon, first responders said on Monday as fighting raged for a fifth day. Violence broke out late on Thursday in the Ain al-Helweh camp on the outskirts of the coastal city of