MADRID – Spain, which was the first European Union country to receive a first tranche of pandemic recovery funding, on Monday was also the first to get European Commission approval for a second instalment worth 12 billion euros ($12.7 billion).

The state-owned oil and gas company Qatar Energy says it is joining a new industry initiative aiming to reduce nearly all methane emissions from their operations by 2030.

People in Tokyo are sweating it out as the government warns of possible power shortages and urges greater efforts to conserve energy while Japan endures unseasonably hot temperatures.

Gustavo Petro, Colombia’s first elected leftist president, will take office in August with ambitious proposals to halt the record-high deforestation rates in the Amazon.

The Group of Seven economic powers are set to announce an agreement to pursue a price cap on Russian oil.

Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has celebrated the opening of the country’s longest bridge, which took eight years to build amid setbacks involving political conflict and corruption allegations.

Israel has dispatched two water-dropping aircraft to help battle a large wildfire that has scorched at least 10,000 acres of forest on the foothills of the Pentadaktylos mountain range in the breakaway north of ethnically divided Cyprus.

Nigeria is grappling with widespread fuel shortages that are forcing motorists to spend hours in lines to buy gas and causing prices to surge for transportation and basic commodities.

Sri Lanka’s prime minister says the island nation’s debt-laden economy has “collapsed” as it runs out of money to pay for food and fuel.

Scientists have discovered the world’s largest bacterium in a Caribbean mangrove swamp.