A Singapore flight took off hours ahead of schedule, while 35 passengers were left behind at the Amritsar airport.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, whose empathetic handling of the nation's worst mass-shooting and health-driven response to the coronavirus pandemic led her to become an international icon but who faced mounting criticism at home, said Thursday she was leaving office.

A helicopter crash in a Kyiv suburb Wednesday killed 18 people, including Ukraine's interior minister and three children, Ukrainian authorities said.

The search for the last missing person in the Nepal plane crash resumed on Wednesday after rescuers on Tuesday pulled out one more body from the crash site where a Yeti Airlines aircraft carrying 72 people, including five Indians, had plunged in a river gorge in the resort city of Pokhara.

A Qantas flight travelling from New Zealand to Sydney issued a mayday call over the ocean Wednesday, and emergency services were responding.

Islamabad: Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has sought "serious" and "sincere" talks with his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi for the resolution of the "burning" issues, including on Kashmir, and said the UAE could play an important role in facilitating the resumption of dialogue between the two nuclear-armed neighbours.

China has announced its first overall population decline in recent years amid an aging society and plunging birthrate.