At least 84 people have died after a massive explosion when a fuel tanker collided with a lorry in Sierra Leone's capital, Freetown. Fuel spilled before igniting and the resulting inferno engulfed bystanders and vehicles at a busy junction. Footage broadcast by local media

At least eight people have died and scores of people have been hurt after a crowd surge on the opening night of a music festival in Houston, Texas. Panic broke out after the crowd began to compress towards the front of the stage at Travis Scott's Astroworld Festival, emergency

Major coal users including Poland, Vietnam and Chile are committing to shift away from the fossil fuel, in pledges made at the COP26 climate summit, the UK government says. Coal is the single biggest contributor to climate change. The UK said 190 nations and organisations had vowed

A four-year-old girl missing for 18 days in a remote part of Western Australia has been found alive and well in a locked house, police have said. Cleo Smith disappeared from her family's tent at a campsite near the town of Carnarvon on 16 October, triggering a massive search. A

India has promised to cut its emissions to net zero by 2070 - missing a key goal of the COP26 summit for countries to commit to reach that target by 2050. Prime Minister Narendra Modi made the pledge, the first time India has set a net zero target, at the Glasgow summit. Net zero,

More than 100 world leaders will promise to end and reverse deforestation by 2030, in the COP26 climate summit's first major deal. Brazil - where stretches of the Amazon rainforest have been cut down - will be among the signatories on Tuesday. The pledge includes almost

Leaders of the world’s 20 biggest economies have agreed to tackle “the critical and urgent threat of climate change” but angered activists by offering few concrete commitments to limit global warming. Wrapping up a summit in Rome, the leaders of the G20 pledged on

Japan's prime minister Fumio Kishida has declared victory for his ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). In a big win for Mr Kishida, who only became PM a month ago, his party secured more than 233 lower house seats - enough to govern without its coalition partner Komeito. The

The highly anticipated COP26 climate change summit begins later in the Scottish city of Glasgow. Delegates from about 200 countries will be there to announce how they will cut emissions by 2030 and help the planet. With the world warming because of fossil fuel emissions caused by

Climate change and Covid are top of the agenda as leaders from the world's major economies meet in Italy. It is the first time the G20 leaders are meeting face-to-face since the start of the pandemic. However, China's Xi Jinping and Russia's Vladimir Putin will not be in

Thousands of anti-coup protesters in Sudan took to the streets to demand the restoration of a civilian-led government in “Million of October 30” demonstrations. The protesters have called for a return to a path to democracy, as they rejected military measures and demanded

National plans to cut carbon fall far short of what's needed to avert dangerous climate change, according to the UN Environment Programme. Their Emissions Gap report says country pledges will fail to keep the global temperature under 1.5C this century. The Unep analysis suggests

Southeast Asian leaders have begun their annual summit without Myanmar, after its military refused to send a representative to the three-day meeting in protest over the exclusion of its top general. Neither Brunei, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) chair, nor the

Millions of Afghans will face starvation this winter unless urgent action is taken, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) has warned. More than half the population - about 22.8 million people - face acute food insecurity, while 3.2 million children under five could suffer acute

Military forces in Sudan have moved Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok to an unknown location after putting him under house arrest earlier on Monday, the country’s information ministry has said. Al Hadath TV also reported that several members of the country’s civilian leadership

Colombia's most wanted drug trafficker and the leader of the country's largest criminal gang has been captured. Dairo Antonio Úsuga, better known as Otoniel, was seized after a joint operation by the army, air force and police on Saturday. The government had offered a

US President Joe Biden and French President Emmanuel Macron discussed strengthening European defences in a telephone call on Friday (Oct 22), the White House said, as Washington seeks to mend ties after a bitter row over submarine contracts. The two leaders "discussed efforts to

The US military has killed senior al-Qaeda leader Abdul Hamid al-Matar in a drone strike in Syria, a US Central Command spokesman said. “The removal of this al-Qaeda senior leader will disrupt the terrorist organisation’s ability to further plot and carry out global attacks

A sword believed to have belonged to a crusader knight about 900 years ago has been found by an amateur diver off Israel's northern coast. The one-metre blade (3.3ft) blade was discovered by Shlomi Katzin and handed over to the authorities. It is thought the sword, which is

North Korea has fired a submarine-launched ballistic missile into waters off the coast of Japan, South Korea's military has said. The launch comes weeks after South Korea unveiled its own such weapon. Pyongyang unveiled a "new" type of submarine-launched missile in