Russian President Vladimir Putin is expected to travel to New Delhi on December 4 and 5 for a two-day state visit, marking his first trip to India since the outbreak of the Russia–Ukraine conflict in 2022. The visit will take place at the invitation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and will coincide with the 23rd India–Russia annual summit. Indian officials say the leaders are preparing to review defence and energy cooperation, areas that have remained active despite Western pressure on countries to reduce ties with Moscow. India has continued purchasing discounted Russian crude and is movi

A deadly fire in a dense Hong Kong housing complex has claimed at least 128 lives, after emergency crews located additional victims while searching the upper floors of seven interconnected residential towers. Local officials say dozens of people are still unaccounted for as firefighters work through badly damaged units. Authorities in Hong Kong have now arrested eight more individuals linked to renovation activity in the buildings, including scaffolding subcontractors and project managers. Investigators are examining whether construction materials – including bamboo scaffolding and foam insu

Hong Kong authorities say 13 people have died after a fast-moving fire swept through a cluster of high-rise residential towers in the Tai Po district of the New Territories. Emergency officials confirmed that nine residents were found dead at the scene, while four others later died in hospital. Officials say roughly 700 people living in the affected housing complex were forced to leave their homes and have since been moved to temporary shelters. Local authorities are assessing the safety of nearby buildings, as several structures were wrapped in construction scaffolding and netting that helped

U.S. border officials say a 22-year-old Indian national was taken into custody at the Peace Bridge crossing at Fort Erie after Canadian officers refused him entry over the weekend. The case is drawing renewed attention to cross-border screening practices that affect travel between Ontario and Western New York, a corridor frequently used by travellers from Ontario’s South Asian communities. According to a statement from U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the man – identified as Vishat Kumar – had previously entered the United States without authorization in 2024 and did not appear for a

Ukrainian officials say at least 25 people have been killed, including three children, after a wave of Russian drone and missile strikes hit residential areas in the western city of Ternopil. Local authorities report that two apartment buildings were heavily damaged and more than 70 residents were injured during the overnight barrage. Ukraine’s military says air defence units intercepted most of the hundreds of drones and dozens of missiles launched across the country. The attack marked one of the largest overnight assaults in recent weeks and comes as communities with Ukrainian ties in Albe

A technical failure at Cloudflare caused widespread service interruptions on Tuesday, affecting access to ChatGPT, social media platform X and several online gaming services. The company, which provides security and traffic management tools used across the internet, said it was working to identify the source of the disruption. Users across Canada, including in Metro Vancouver and parts of Alberta, reported repeated 500 error messages and an inability to load web-based tools that rely on Cloudflare’s infrastructure. The outage also limited access to Cloudflare’s own dashboard and API, which

Australian para-cyclist Paige Greco, a gold medalist from the Tokyo Paralympics, has died following what officials described as a sudden medical episode at her home in Adelaide on Sunday. She was 28. Greco, who lived with cerebral palsy, captured international attention in 2021 when she won the first gold medal awarded at the Tokyo Paralympic Games, breaking her own world record on the track. She went on to earn two bronze medals in the road race and individual time trial. Paralympics Australia and the national cycling federation said her family is grieving the unexpected loss, remembering her

A special tribunal in Bangladesh has imposed death sentences on former prime minister Sheikh Hasina and ex-home minister Asaduzzaman Khan, holding them responsible for a violent state response to a student uprising last year, according to the court’s decision released Monday. Both former officials were tried in absentia after leaving for India, which has said it will not extradite them. The International Crimes Tribunal in Dhaka ruled that the pair authorized actions that contributed to widespread casualties during nationwide demonstrations over a contested public-sector quota system. The pr

President Donald Trump has signed a long-delayed government funding bill, formally ending the United States’ record 43-day shutdown that left hundreds of thousands of federal employees without pay and disrupted key public services. The bill cleared the U.S. House of Representatives late Thursday by a narrow 222–209 vote, largely along party lines. Democrats had pressed to include an extension of an enhanced tax credit that reduces health insurance costs under the Affordable Care Act. Republicans rejected that demand, arguing the issue should be debated separately, allowing the spending mea