HELSINKI – Finland and Sweden might decide together whether or not they will join NATO following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Finnish Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto said on Tuesday.

The U.N. General Assembly has taken a first step to put the five permanent members of the Security Council under the spotlight when they use their veto power.

China is promoting coal-fired power as the ruling Communist Party tries to revive a sluggish economy, prompting warnings that Beijing is setting back efforts to cut climate-changing carbon emissions from the biggest global source.

GENEVA – The United States, as well as the Taliban authorities, is contributing to the suffering of women in Afghanistan through asset freezes, U.N. independent experts said on Monday.

A new United Nations report says disasters are on the rise and are going to get worse.

DUBAI – Regional rivals Iran and Saudi Arabia held a fifth round of “positive” talks in Baghdad last Thursday on normalising bilateral relations, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson Saeed Khatibzadeh confirmed on Monday.

Grief-stricken South Africans are still searching for family members swept away by last week’s floods in which 435 people died and more than 40,000 were made homeless in the coastal city of Durban and the surrounding KwaZulu-Natal province.

Ten people found so far from a Japanese tour boat missing off the country’s northern coast have been confirmed dead, the coast guard said on Sunday.

The United States unleashed some of its toughest actions against Russian President Vladimir Putin right after he rolled his troops into Ukraine.

TOKYO – Japan and Russia struck a deal on Tokyo’s fishing quota to catch salmon and trout born in Russian rivers, Japan’s fisheries agency said on Saturday, despite worsening ties over the crisis in Ukraine.