World

Israel reportedly informed U.S. officials that it was behind a Tuesday mine attack on an Iranian vessel stationed in the Red Sea, a dangerous escalation that came on the same day American and Iranian negotiators took part in European-led talks in Vienna on the 2015 nuclear agreement.

The timing of the attack, which Iranian media outlets reported Tuesday without assigning blame, raised suspicions that it was carried out with the express purpose of undermining steps toward a diplomatic solution on the nuclear accord. In 2018, U.S. President Donald Trump violated the agreement, which Israel's right-wing government has opposed from the beginning.

Brazil registered more than 4,000 Covid-19 deaths in 24 hours for the first time Tuesday, the health ministry said, as the country reeled from a surge of infections that has made it the current epicenter of the pandemic.

The coronavirus claimed 4,195 lives in the deadliest day of the pandemic yet for the hard-hit country, whose total reported death toll is now nearly 337,000, second only to the United States.

One in three people who overcome Covid-19 suffer from a neurological or psychiatric diagnosis six months on, according to the largest study so far published on the mental toll that long-Covid takes on survivors.

Authors said the research, printed Wednesday in The Lancet Psychiatry journal, proved that Covid-19 patients were significantly more likely to develop brain conditions than those suffering from other respiratory tract infections.

US and Iranian officials said initial indirect talks in Vienna on Tuesday aimed at reviving the 2015 nuclear deal were "constructive", with negotiations set to continue this week as US President Joe Biden looks for ways to revive the agreement.

"We do see this as a constructive and certainly welcome step," US State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters in Washington.

Acclaimed Russian director Andrei Konchalovsky has pulled his latest film from the country's prestigious White Elephants Awards in protest at plans to honour opposition leader Alexei Navalny at the event.

In a message on Facebook, the 83-year-old said he had asked that "Dear Comrades!" -- nominated for best film and also shortlisted for the 93rd Academy Awards -- be withdrawn from consideration at the festival, as he did not want it to be judged alongside political work by the jailed Kremlin critic.

Prince Harry will produce a documentary about the Invictus Games for disabled military veterans -- the first series under a lucrative deal he and wife Meghan Markle signed with Netflix after moving to California last year.

Harry, who served with the British military in Afghanistan, will appear on camera and executive-produce "Heart of Invictus," a multi-episode series which follows competitors as they train for next spring's competition in The Hague.

The US Defense Department called Tuesday for Russia to make clear its intentions regarding a buildup of military forces along Ukraine's southeast border and in Crimea.

Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said Russia had not announced, as is traditional, that it was conducting exercises, leaving its intentions ambiguous and firing up tensions in the region.

US President Joe Biden's administration on Tuesday expanded sanctions on a powerful Mexican drug cartel, stepping up pressure as its violent campaign prompts growing concern.

The Treasury Department blocked any US assets and criminalized transactions with three people affiliated with Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion, which was suspected in the brazen assassination in December of a former governor at a tourist restaurant in Puerto Vallarta.

In an effort to end what she called the "30-year race to the bottom on corporate tax rates," U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Monday urged her counterparts around the world to join her in embracing a global minimum tax aimed at preventing companies from shifting profits offshore to slash their bills.

The proliferation of so-called "tax havens" around the world in recent years contributed to the sharp decline in the average global corporate tax rate—which has fallen from around 40% in 1980 to 24% today—as countries adjusted their rates downward to either attract multinationals or prevent companies from seeking to stash their profits elsewhere.

Jordan sought to throw a veil Tuesday over its public palace feud by ordering its media to stop reporting on an alleged plot the government says involves the half-brother of King Abdullah II.

Prince Hamzah had on Saturday harshly criticised Jordan's leaders from what he said was house arrest -- but in a dramatic about-turn on Monday pledged his loyalty to the royal family.

Remote-controlled Venus flytrap "robo-plants" and crops that tell farmers when they are hit by disease could become reality after scientists developed a high-tech system for communicating with vegetation.

Researchers in Singapore linked up plants to electrodes capable of monitoring the weak electrical pulses naturally emitted by the greenery.

NASA's Ingenuity mini-helicopter has survived its first night alone on the frigid surface of Mars, the US space agency said, hailing it as "a major milestone" for the tiny craft as it prepares for its first flight.

The ultra-light aircraft was dropped on the surface on Saturday after detaching from the belly of the Perseverance rover, which touched down on the Red Planet on February 18.