Taiwan warned Honduras on Thursday not to be tempted by the "poison" of aid from China no matter how indebted it was and ruled out getting involved in a bidding war for diplomatic allies with its mainland rival.

Honduran President Xiomara Castro said on Tuesday she had instructed the country's foreign minister to bring about the opening of official relations with China, a move that threatens to further diminish Taiwan's dwindling pool of allies.

Startup-focused lender SVB Financial Group became the largest bank failure since the financial crisis on Friday, in a sudden collapse that roiled global markets and stranded billions of dollars belonging to companies and investors.

US President Joe Biden and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen are expected to agree on Friday to begin negotiations on ensuring free-trade agreement-like status for the European Union, two sources familiar with the plans said on Wednesday.

"The incident with the American MQ-9 Reaper UAV -- provoked by Russia over the Black Sea -- is Putin's way of signalling his readiness to expand the conflict to involve other parties. The purpose of this all-in tactic is to always be raising the stakes," Ukraine's National Security and Defence Council secretary  Oleksiy Danilov said on social media.

Putin has yet to travel beyond the borders of the former Soviet Union since sending his armed forces into Ukraine in February last year, and missed November's G20 summit in Bali, Indonesia.

France faced a seventh day of demonstrations on Saturday against President Emmanuel Macron's unpopular pension reform plans amid ongoing rolling strikes which have affected refineries, public transport and garbage collections.  

The disruption came during a fresh wave of Russian strikes across Ukraine which killed at least nine people and led to power outages across the country.

Palestine’s envoy to Indonesia says the country has no qualms with Indonesia hosting the FIFA U-20 World Cup despite the participation of Israel's soccer team.

Tinubu, candidate of Buhari's ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), won 8.8 million votes against 6.9 million for opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate Atiku Abubakar and 6.1 million for the Labour Party's Peter Obi in Saturday's election, according to final results.

Omran Alswed and his family are still living in makeshift shelters almost three weeks after the massive earthquake in southern Turkey, having been unable to find a place in an official camp.