SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — The American-led U.N. Command said Monday it has started a conversation with North Korea about a U.S. soldier who ran into the North last week across one of the world’s most heavily fortified borders.

MAIDAN SHAR, Afghanistan, July 24 (Xinhua) -- Standing in front of his destroyed mud-house after a flood struck his village in east Afghanistan early Sunday, Nooruding was mourning his deceased family members.

"We have 21 martyrs, two others from our neighbors. In total, we have 23 martyrs, 21 from my family," Noorudin said.

MOSCOW, July 24. /TASS/: Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a law on the introduction of the digital ruble and the creation of a corresponding electronic platform. The document is published on the official portal of legal information.

It implies an additional form of the Russian national currency, which will be issued along with existing forms of money. That means that the Russian ruble will have three forms: cash, non-cash and digital.

NEW DELHI (AP) — India’s Parliament was disrupted for a third day Monday by opposition protests over ethnic clashes in a remote northeastern state in which more than 130 people have been killed since May.

Opposition lawmakers carried placards and chanted slogans outside the Parliament building as they demanded a statement from Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the violence in Manipur state before a debate on the issue.

AMMAN, Jul 24 (NNN-PETRA) – Jordan and Syria, yesterday, held a meeting in Amman, to discuss cooperation, to prevent drug smuggling across the Syrian borders into Jordan.

The meeting, also the inaugural meeting of the Jordanian-Syrian Joint Committee for Combating Drug Smuggling, focused on the pressing threats posed by drug trafficking to the entire region.

Jordan and Syria agreed to form the joint committee, during the visit of Jordanian Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, Ayman Safadi to Syria, on Jul 3.

23 July 2023; AA: The Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen have announced that negotiations with Saudi Arabia to resolve the region's crisis have stalled due to a disagreement over the source of funds to be paid to civil servants as salaries.

PARIS (AP) — The French president is heading to the South Pacific to make France’s voice heard in a region shaping up as a prime geopolitical battleground for China and the U.S.

President Emmanuel Macron’s trip to Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu and New Caledonia comes as French forces take part in massive U.S.-Australian-led military exercises in the region. With French troops, citizens and resources spread across its Pacific territories, France wants to protect its own interests and project its power alongside like-minded democracies worried about China’s growing assertiveness.

July 24 (Reuters) - An ammunition depot was hit during a Ukrainian drone attack on Dzhankoi in Crimea early on Monday, with Russian air defence forces shooting down or electronically jamming 11 drones over the area, a Russian-installed official said.

Sergei Aksyonov, the Russian-installed governor of the Crimean Peninsula that Moscow annexed from Ukraine in 2014, also said that a residential building was damaged in the area.

He said there was no indication of any casualties, but people within a 5 km (3 mile) radius of the incident were being evacuated.

Varanasi (UP), Jul 24 (PTI) A survey of the Gyanvapi complex to ascertain if the mosque located next to the Kashi Vishwanath temple in Uttar Pradesh's Varanasi was built upon a temple was stopped by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) on Monday following a Supreme Court order.

The apex Court has halted the "detailed scientific survey" till 5 pm on July 26, saying "some breathing time" needed to be granted to appeal against the order.

ROME (AP) — The Jesuits said Monday that a famous artist priest is definitively expelled from the religious order for sexually, spiritually and psychologically abusing women, and lamented they couldn’t prosecute him more vigorously under the Vatican’s internal procedures.

The Rev. Marko Ivan Rupnik remains a Catholic priest but is no longer a Jesuit priest, after he didn’t appeal his June expulsion decree, said Rupnik’s former superior, the Rev. Johan Verschueren.

MOSCOW, July 24. /TASS/: Moscow should select non-standard targets for its retaliatory strikes in response to Kiev’s attacks on civilian facilities, Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev said.

23 July 2023; MEMO: Authorities in Saudi Arabia seized more than six million narcotic pills concealed in sweets and nuts from a shipment coming from Oman and arrested a Saudi and a Syrian national on the charges of carrying them, local media reported on Saturday, Reuters reports.