India and Nepal have signed an updated Agreement on Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters in Kathmandu, enabling the competent authorities of the two countries to cooperate in criminal investigations and legal proceedings.

Two miners were killed and two others sustained injuries due to a blast inside a mine in the northern Afghanistan's Badakhshan province, provincial police spokesman Ehsanullah Kamgar said Tuesday.

North Korea has built new homes in Pyongyang for the bereaved family members of North Korean soldiers who died during the Russia-Ukraine war, its state media said on Monday.

The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said North Korean leader Kim Jong-un attended the opening ceremony of the new street called Saeppyol Street on Sunday, accompanied by his daughter Ju-ae and other officials.

At least three people were killed in a plane crash in Steamboat Springs, US state of Colorado, according to a preliminary report from the Federal Aviation Administration.

The US National Transportation Safety Board said on X that it is investigating the crash of an Epic Aircraft E1000, a single-engine, six-seat turboprop light aircraft, news agency reported.

South Korean President Lee Jae Myung will host a luncheon with the leaders of the ruling Democratic Party (DP) and the main opposition People Power Party (PPP) later this week to discuss ways to seek bipartisan cooperation on the economy and other pending issues, Cheong Wa Dae said.

Nine people were killed in a mass shooting allegedly by a person, possibly a woman, who committed suicide in a mining town in British Columbia, according to officials.

The area’s federal police Chief Superintendent Ken Floyd said on Tuesday night (local time) that seven people were found dead in a local high school in Tumbler Ridge and two others in a home.

Financial authorities began a formal investigation on Tuesday into Bithumb, a local crypto exchange, to determine how it was able to pay out over 60 trillion won ($41.2 billion) in bitcoins it apparently did not have, industry sources said.

Regulators informed the crypto exchange Monday that an investigation will be conducted, three days after they conducted an on-site inspection, according to the sources, reports news agency.

South Korean President Lee Jae Myung on Monday congratulated Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi on her party's victory in an election, wishing for Japan's further development under her leadership and hoping to meet her in South Korea via shuttle diplomacy.

Lee posted the congratulatory message on social media platform X after Takaichi's Liberal Democratic Party secured a two-thirds majority in the 465-member House of Representatives in snap elections held Sunday, News Agency reported.

The South Korean and US air forces will kick off a joint aerial exercise this week in a bid to enhance interoperability, the South's armed forces said on Monday.

The Buddy Squadron exercise will take place at Osan Air Base in Pyeongtaek, some 65 kilometres south of Seoul, from Monday through Friday, according to the Air Force.

It will involve South Korea's KF-16 fighter jets and the US F-16 fighters, along with the F-35A fighter jet and the FA-50 light attack fighter, to be deployed for a combined operations training.

The South Korean economy is showing a moderate increase in production, thanks to improved consumption, a state-run think tank said on Monday.

"Recently, our economy has maintained moderate production growth, led by the service sector, thanks to improvements in consumption," the Korea Development Institute (KDI) said in its monthly economic assessment, reports news agency.

The death toll from the Islamabad suicide bombing rose to 36 on Saturday, local media reported, quoting a spokesperson of the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS).

"A 21-year-old man, who was brought from the imambargah, died," said Dr Aneeza Jalil while speaking to a leading Pakistani daily, Dawn.

She further mentioned that nine of the injured are in "very serious" condition.

US President Donald Trump signed an executive order to reshape how the United States sells weapons abroad, aiming to rebuild domestic manufacturing, cut red tape and speed delivery of American-made arms to key partners and allies.

The White House said the order establishes an “America First Arms Transfer Strategy” to ensure the US defence industrial base remains the “Arsenal of Freedom” for the United States and its partners.

 US President Donald Trump said that Iran “looks like it wants to make a deal very badly,” as he pointed to what he described as progress in talks on Iran, Russia and Ukraine, while also touting economic gains and lower prices at home.

“We had very, very good talks today, having to do with Russia, Ukraine,” Trump said. “Something could be happening.”

A sharp partisan clash over inflation, bank regulation and financial stability dominated a Senate Banking Committee hearing on as Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent defended the administration’s economic record and the Financial Stability Oversight Council’s 2025 annual report.

 US drug agents have shut down more than 200 illegal online pharmacy websites linked to an India-based criminal network blamed for deadly overdoses in the United States.

The Drug Enforcement Administration said Wednesday the websites were tied to a transnational criminal organisation that allegedly caused at least six fatal and four non-fatal overdoses. The group has been under investigation since 2022.

South Korea and the United States are considering outlining a timeline for Washington's transition of wartime operational control (OPCON) to Seoul in their annual defence ministerial talks this year, a source said on Wednesday, with the year 2028 widely considered a likely target schedule.

The move comes as South Korea has been seeking to achieve the "conditions-based" handover of wartime command, currently held by the US, within President Lee Jae Myung's five-year term that ends in 2030.

US President Donald Trump said that talks aimed at ending the war between Russia and Ukraine stand a chance of success, saying negotiators are close to a settlement despite deep hostility between the two sides.

“I think they stand a chance,” Trump said on Friday, when asked about the prospects for peace talks. He said the conflict has been especially difficult because of the animosity between the leaders of the two countries.

“Zelenskyy and Putin hate each other,” Trump said.

South Korea's science ministry on Thursday unveiled the road map to foster the quantum industry, aiming to become the world's top quantum chip producer by 2035.

The Ministry of Science and ICT stated that the plan includes fostering 10,000 experts in the field and nurturing 2,000 businesses, to secure homegrown quantum technologies that can deliver industrial breakthroughs by building advancements in the artificial intelligence (AI) sector, news agency reported.

President Donald Trump said a large US naval force is moving toward the Middle East amid tensions with Iran, adding that Washington hopes military force will not be needed but is prepared if diplomacy fails.

In a radio interview with WABC host Sid Rosenberg, Trump said the deployment was aimed at deterring further escalation and reinforcing US pressure on Tehran. “We have a big armada going over there right now,” Trump said. He described the force as “very powerful” and said it was larger than a recent US deployment linked to operations involving Venezuela.

A private business jet carrying eight people crashed during takeoff at Bangor airport in the US state of Maine, with no casualties reported.

Bangor International Airport said in a statement that emergency crews responded to the accident at around 7:45 p.m. Eastern Time (0045 GMT Monday), and the airport has been closed temporarily, news agency reported.

Two people were killed as a severe weather system swept across Greece, authorities said.

In southern Greece's Peloponnese peninsula, a Coast Guard officer lost his life after being swept away by strong waves at the port of Astros Kynourias and sustaining serious head injuries, according to local officials. In the southern Athens suburb of Glyfada, a woman was killed when floodwaters carried away her car, reports news agency, citing Greek national broadcaster ERT.

Two people were killed in a head-on collision between two vehicles in the Australian state of Queensland, police said.

A statement from the Queensland Police Service (QPS) on Wednesday said that the two vehicles were traveling in opposite directions on a highway when they collided near the small town of Epsom, 790 km northwest of the state capital of Brisbane, around 10:10 p.m. local time on Tuesday.

The sole occupants of both vehicles, a 49-year-old man and a 39-year-old woman, were declared deceased at the scene.

The death toll in the Gul Plaza shopping mall fire in Pakistan's Karachi climbed to 14 on Monday after the rescuers found eight more bodies from the site, local media reported.

The search for over 70 missing people is still underway.

The massive fire that erupted at Gul Plaza on Saturday night.

President Donald Trump said that his administration had reshaped global dynamics through assertive diplomacy and military action, laying out an expansive account of US foreign policy and economic gains during remarks at a Florida event.

Trump said US actions abroad had produced swift and decisive outcomes. “We have peace in the Middle East. Nobody thought that was going to be possible,” he said, pointing to what he described as multiple agreements reached within a year.

The United States and Japan reaffirmed the central role of their alliance in maintaining peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific this week, as Secretary of War Pete Hegseth hosted Japanese Defence Minister Shinjiro Koizumi.

Senior officials from both countries held a series of high-level meetings spanning defence, diplomacy, and economic cooperation this week.

Senior Democrats sharply criticised the Trump administration after it moved to halt immigrant visa processing for applicants from 75 countries, calling the decision discriminatory, harmful to families, and damaging to US economic and moral standing.

Sen. Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts said the State Department’s decision to stop processing immigrant visas amounted to a sweeping ban that would separate families and hurt states that depend on immigrants for education and economic growth.

South Korea's central bank again left its benchmark interest rate unchanged on Thursday as a weakened won and rising inflation concerns limited room for further easing.

In a widely expected decision, the Monetary Policy Board of the Bank of Korea (BOK) held the key rate at 2.5 per cent at its rate-setting meeting in Seoul, marking the fifth consecutive on-hold decision since July, reports news agency.

A passenger train travelling from Bangkok to Thailand’s northeastern region met with a major accident on Wednesday after a construction crane collapsed onto one of its coaches, resulting in the deaths of at least 22 people and injuries to over 55 others, according to Thai police officials.

The incident occurred at around 9:05 am in the Sikhio district of Nakhon Ratchasima province, located nearly 230 km northeast of the Thai capital. The train was en route to Ubon Ratchathani province when the accident took place.

North Korea has replaced its top officials in charge of guarding leader Kim Jong-un in recent years, Seoul's unification ministry said on Tuesday.

North Korea has changed the chiefs of three major North Korean units defending the security of the North's leader -- the Guard Office of the ruling party, the Guard Department of the State Affairs Commission and the Guard Command -- the ministry said in its analysis of the major reshuffle of North Korean officials in 2025.

The ministry did not disclose the exact timing or the reason for the replacement, but it said the changed chiefs of such agencies were detected during a military parade marking the 80th founding anniversary of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK) in October 2025, News Agency reported.

Flood warnings have been issued across the northeast Australian state of Queensland as ex-Tropical Cyclone Koji continues to cause widespread intense rainfall.

As of Tuesday morning local time, the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) had multiple flood warnings in place for rivers and catchments in central, northeast and northwest Queensland after some regions received more than a year's worth of rainfall in one week.

In the small town of Clermont, about 750 km northwest of the state capital of Brisbane, residents in low-lying areas were on Monday afternoon ordered to move to higher ground.

Over 300 properties remained without electricity on Tuesday in the town of around 3,000 people, which has been cut off by floodwaters.

South Korea's exports of food and agriculture-related products reached a record high of $13.62 billion in 2025, driven by the global popularity of Korean food products, such as "ramyeon" noodles, sauces and fruits, the agriculture ministry said on Monday.

Exports in the "K-Food Plus" sector expanded 5.1 percent from a year earlier to the new annual high, according to the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs. K-Food Plus is a term coined by the local government to promote exports of Korean food and agricultural goods, including farm machinery and veterinary medicine, reports news agency.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez discussed the Mercosur-EU free trade agreement and the situation in Venezuela, Brazil's presidential office said.

During their telephone conversation on Friday (local time), Lula thanked the Spanish government for supporting the agreement and called the deal "a very positive signal in defence of multilateralism and predictable, stable trade rules."

A man has died, and a state of disaster has been declared amid the ongoing bushfire crisis in the southeast Australian state of Victoria.

Premier of Victoria Jacinta Allan said at a press conference that a man aged in his 60s was found deceased in his car near the town of Harcourt, 110 km northwest of Melbourne, on Friday afternoon.

His death was not directly related to the fires, Allan said, but occurred in close proximity to a fire ground, reports news agency.

Anti-government protests continue to flare up across Iran, leaving several protesters dead and triggering a communication blockade in parts of the country, as unrest shows no signs of abating.

According to multiple media reports, at least 62 people have been killed since the demonstrations began in December last year.

As Iran remains gripped by widespread protests, state media on Friday accused “terrorist agents” linked to the United States and Israel of fuelling the violence.

US President Donald Trump Thursday night said the United States will oversee Venezuela’s recovery and oil sector before the country can move toward elections, arguing that years of collapse under Nicolas Maduro have left the nation unable to conduct a vote.

Trump made the remarks in a sit-down interview on Fox News’ Hannity, his first television interview since the US operation that led to Maduro’s capture.