At least 16 people were killed and 32 more injured when a strong 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck China’s western Tibet autonomous region late on Thursday, state news agency Xinhua said, citing local authorities. More than 300 houses collapsed in the earthquake, which struck on Thursday at 10.33pm. Officials were still evaluating the damage, and disaster relief work was ongoing, Xinhua said. The epicentre of the quake was located in a mountainous area about 190km (120 miles) east-northeast of...

Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg will get a new chunk of shares in the company he founded, and in return, he has agreed to stay in California, where the company is headquartered, for at least eight more years. It is partly a financial carrot intended to keep Zuckerberg in California, where voters in November will decide whether to approve a temporary tax on wealth held by billionaires who live in the state. Meta announced the deal on Wednesday in a securities filing that coincided with its...

Alexandra Eala crashed out in the Ningbo Open last 16 on Thursday as world No 1 Elena Rybakina reached the quarter-finals on her return from injury when opponent Polina Kudermetova retired. Top seed and defending champion Rybakina was cruising 5-0 in eastern China when the world No 105 from Uzbekistan called it quits because of injury. Earlier, Philippine history-maker Eala suffered a battling straight-sets defeat to Diana Shnaider, the Russian world No 13 winning 7-5, 6-4 to book a...

A mob of about 50 people beat a foreign national to death on Thursday in South Africa’s port city of Durban, a flashpoint for anti-migrant sentiment, police said. Durban has been a focus of months of protests against foreign nationals, with looting and violence erupting after an anti-migrant march in the city two weeks ago. Thursday’s attack in the city centre was on the sidelines of a march, police said, without being able to say what the demonstration was about. Two men from the group...

Facing US sanctions, the International Criminal Court was on Thursday awarded the European Union’s top rights prize, in a show of support that risks upsetting President Donald Trump. “The European Union is built on respect for multilateralism and international institutions, and this prize recognises the important work of the court in upholding international law and justice,” said European Parliament chief Roberta Metsola in announcing the award. The ICC thanked the European Parliament for giving...

Officials at the Asian Para Games in Nagoya played the wrong national anthems three times this week, prompting the mayor to apologise just weeks after the city hosted the mishap-plagued Asian Games. The Asian Para Games are taking place in the central Japanese hub city through Saturday, featuring around 4,000 athletes and officials in 18 sports. Nagoya mayor Ichiro Hirosawa apologised on Wednesday for the latest error, which occurred despite officials’ pledges to implement steps to prevent...

Australia and East Timor signed a defence deal on Thursday to boost cyber and maritime security as Canberra seeks to curb China’s influence among its island neighbours. Australia is East Timor’s largest defence and security partner and the agreement will significantly increase defence exercises, Defence Minister Richard Marles told reporters. “This is a time to double down on friendship, to double down on family,” he said in East Timor’s capital Dili. Australia will provide A$62 million (US$44...

Moscow firing ballistic missiles at Ukraine shortly after talks between US envoy Steve Witkoff and Russia’s Vladimir Putin showed the Kremlin’s position on the war had not changed, President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Thursday. The Kremlin had said it was willing to restart trilateral talks with Kyiv and Washington next month, though dismissed new ideas brought by Witkoff – developed with European countries and Ukraine – as lacking substance. Russia hit a dozen Ukrainian regions overnight,...

The publisher of top-selling Haitian-Canadian writer Thelyson Orelien said Wednesday it had confirmed that he used artificial intelligence to help write his novel It Was Either That or Die. Orelien has denied allegations that he used AI on his breakthrough novel and, last week, Canadian publisher Boreal said it was standing by the 38-year-old writer. But on Wednesday, Boreal said it had conducted a further investigation into the allegations. “New information, confirmed over the past few days,...

Indonesia’s president railed against “countries that like to insult” his nation over wildfires that have razed vast areas, spewing toxic haze into neighbouring countries. The Southeast Asian giant has for months struggled to contain fires that Nusantara Atlas, an independent monitor analysing satellite data, said had consumed more than 1.9 million hectares (4.7 million acres) in the nine months to September. The haze has sent air pollution levels surging to dangerous levels not only at home, but...

Vivek Ramaswamy, the Republican candidate for Ohio governor, faced a firestorm of criticism Wednesday over an ad featuring Democratic rival Amy Acton’s estranged mother, whose husband was charged with raping Acton when she was a child. Acton has not spoken with her mother, Donna Arthur, since her childhood, when she accused her then-stepfather of sexually abusing her for years. In the ad, Arthur says her daughter has “lied her entire life”. “Don’t let her become your governor. If you think...

Government agencies and companies around the world shut down websites Wednesday after two critical flaws came to light involving PHP, a programming language that is the basis for a large share of the internet. PHP sits underneath popular web design platforms, so the weaknesses potentially affect a vast range of websites, from online stores and news outlets to government services. Wiz, one of the security firms that found the flaws, estimated that PHP runs about 70 per cent of the world’s...