The United Nations appealed on Thursday for a record $41 billion to provide life-saving assistance next year to 183 million people worldwide caught up in conflict and poverty, led by a tripling of its programme in Afghanistan.

Germany agreed on new COVID-19 restrictions on Thursday and the United States prepared to do the same, while U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the Omicron variant showed the pandemic could be around for “some time”.

Taiwan’s air force scrambled again on Sunday to warn away 27 Chinese aircraft that entered its air defence zone, Taiwan’s defence ministry said, the latest increase in tensions across the Taiwan Strait as China’s president met his top generals.

The new Omicron coronavirus variant kept spreading around the world on Sunday, with 13 cases found in the Netherlands and two each in Denmark and Australia, even as more countries tried to seal themselves off by imposing travel restrictions.

Tens of thousands of Indian farmers marched overnight to reinforce protesting colleagues camping on the outskirts of the capital New Delhi to mark a year of sustained demonstrations against three farm laws introduced last year.

Global authorities reacted with alarm on Friday to a new coronavirus variant detected in South Africa, with the EU and Britain among those tightening border controls as researchers sought to find out if the mutation was vaccine-resistant.

French President Emmanuel Macron told Britain on Friday it needed to “get serious” or remain locked out of discussions over how to curb the flow of migrants escaping war and poverty across the Channel.

At least 11 miners died in a coal mining accident in Russia’s Siberia on Thursday and an operation to rescue dozens more people stuck underground was suspended due to the risk of an explosion, the region’s governor said.

France said on Thursday it was mobilising reservists and beefing up sea rescue operations as London and Paris traded blame over the deaths of 27 migrants trying to reach Britain in an inflatable dinghy.

Scientists are sounding the alarm, as what could be the most highly-evolved strain of the coronavirus has been discovered in patients in different parts of the world. Its resistance to vaccines adds to the concerns.

China’s government has called for the end of speculation surrounding tennis star Peng Shuai, who made sexual assault allegations against a former vice premier and was then not seen for two weeks.

At least 46 people including several children have been killed in a bus crash south of the Bulgarian capital Sofia that one regional leader described as a “huge tragedy.”

The United Nations and rights groups have criticised the arrest of a prominent activist in Indian-administered Kashmir on terror funding charges.

In a surprise announcement on Friday, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he would repeal agriculture laws that farmers have been protesting against for more than a year, sparking celebrations for what farmers called a hard-fought victory.

Poland accused Belarus on Friday of trucking hundreds of migrants back to the border and pushing them to attempt to cross illegally, only hours after clearing camps at the frontier.

Deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest rose by almost 22 percent in one year, the highest level in 15 years, according to figures Thursday that cast doubt on promises by President Jair Bolsonaro’s government to reverse the trend with “forc

The United States on Thursday threw its support behind negotiations on a treaty to curb plastic pollution, ending a key holdup in international efforts to clean up the planet’s oceans and save marine life.

The Islamic State terrorist group is tearing a path across Afghanistan, establishing itself in “nearly all” of its provinces while increasing attacks more than five-fold in the past year, the UN’s envoy to the country has warned.

Russia’s decision to extend the country’s Covid-19 prevention measures until 2024 was made because the authorities see ‘no end in sight’ to the pandemic, which is currently killing more than 1,000 people per day there.

More children are in hospital with breathing problems as pollution levels remain dangerously high in New Delhi, doctors warned on Wednesday, and the government shut five power stations and extended school closures to try to contain the crisis.

NASA administrator Bill Nelson said Monday he was “outraged” by a Russian space missile test that sparked a debris cloud and forced astronauts aboard the International Space Station to take evasive action.

Polish security forces turned water cannon on migrants who threw rocks across the Belarusian border, where thousands have gathered in a chaotic attempt to reach the European Union, video footage shared by authorities showed on Tuesday.

U.S. President Joe Biden pressed his Chinese counterpart on human rights in a video call lasting more than three hours, while Xi Jinping warned that China would respond to provocations on Taiwan, according to official accounts of the exchange.

Poland has announced it has struck a deal with the UK, calling in British troops to help with the construction of a fortified border wall along its eastern frontier with Belarus, as a row over illegal migration escalates.

Around 3.2 million children are expected to suffer from acute malnutrition in Afghanistan by the end of this year, with 1 million of them at risk of dying as temperatures drop, a World Health Organization spokesperson said on Friday.

India’s federal pollution control board on Friday ordered states and local bodies to be in “complete readiness” for emergency measures to tackle New Delhi’s worsening smog conditions due to a drop in temperature and wind speeds.

A surprise deal between China and the United States, the world’s two biggest greenhouse gas emitters, has boosted the COP26 U.N. climate summit as it enters two final days of tough bargaining to try to stop global warming becoming catastrophic.

The Asia-Pacific region must not return to the tensions of the Cold War era, Chinese President Xi Jinping said on Thursday, ahead of a virtual meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden expected as soon as next week.

Countries bordering Belarus on Thursday warned the migrant crisis on the European Union’s eastern borders could escalate into a military confrontation while Ukraine said it would deploy thousands more troops to reinforce its frontier.