World Top News

On Monday, the U.K. became the first country to approve a bivalent vaccine booster shot for adults, which would target both the original COVID virus and the Omicron variant. This vaccine, which is likely going to be available in the U.S. starting in the fall, is expected to provide increased and longer-lasting protection against COVID and the new variants. Sony Salzman, coordinating producer for ABC News’ Medical Unit, sat down with ABC News' podcast “Start Here” to discuss what people can expect from the new bivalent vaccine, and the way forward in the country’s vaccination strategy. START HERE: Yesterday the U.K. became the first country on Earth to approve a new type of vaccine, a vaccine that was engineered with a more recent variant of COVID in mind. Let's check in with ABC's Sony ...

JUIZ DE FORA, Brazil -- Brazil's presidential election campaign officially began Tuesday with former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva leading all polls against incumbent Jair Bolsonaro amid growing concern of political violence and threats to democracy. Da Silva, whose two-term presidency ran from 2003 to 2010, has already taken to wearing a bulletproof vest for public appearances. He was scheduled to speak at an engine factory Tuesday morning, but federal police officers asked him to cancel the event due to security concerns, according to his campaign. Instead, the leftist launched his seventh bid for the presidency at a Volkswagen plant in Sao Bernardo do Campo, a manufacturing city outside Sao Paulo where he rose to fame as an union leader in the 1970s. Bolsonaro revisited the spot...

BERLIN -- Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas expressed no regret Tuesday for the deadly attack by Palestinian militants on Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics a half century ago, countering that Israel had committed “50 Holocausts” against Palestinians over the years. Eleven Israeli athletes and a German police officer died after members of the Palestinian militant group Black September took hostages at the Olympic Village on Sept. 5, 1972. At the time of the attack, the group was linked to Abbas’ Fatah party. Asked whether as Palestinian leader he planned to apologize to Israel and Germany for the attack ahead of the 50th anniversary next month, Abbas responded instead by citing allegations of atrocities committed by Israel since 1947. “If we want to go over the past, go ahead,”Ch...

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates -- The first shipment of grain to leave Ukraine under a wartime deal appears to have ended up in Syria — even as Damascus remains a close ally of Moscow, satellite images analyzed Tuesday by The Associated Press show. The arrival of the cargo ship Razoni in Syria comes after the government in Kyiv praised the ship’s initial departure from the port of Odesa as a sign that Ukraine could safely ship out its barley, corn, sunflower oil and wheat to a hungry world where global food prices have spiked in part due to the war. But its arrival in Syria's port of Tartus shows how complicated and murky international trade and shipping can be. Syria has already received Ukrainian grain taken from Russian-occupied territory amid Moscow’s war on Kyiv. Images from Planet La...

KYIV, Ukraine -- Explosions and fires ripped through an ammunition depot in Russian-occupied Crimea on Tuesday in the second suspected Ukrainian attack on the peninsula in just over a week, forcing the evacuation of more than 3,000 people. Russia blamed the blasts in the village of Mayskoye on an “act of sabotage,” without naming the perpetrators. Separately, the Russian business newspaper Kommersant quoted residents as saying plumes of black smoke also rose over an air base in Crimea’s Gvardeyskoye. Ukraine stopped short of publicly claiming responsibility for any of the blasts, including those that destroyed nine Russian planes at another Crimean air base last week. Russia seized the Crimean Peninsula in 2014 and has used it to launch attacks against Ukraine in the war that began near...

KYIV, Ukraine -- A United Nations-chartered ship loaded with 23,000 metric tons of Ukrainian grain destined for Ethiopia set sail Sunday from a Black Sea port, the first shipment of its kind in a program to assist countries facing famine. The Liberia-flagged Brave Commander departed from the Ukrainian port of Yuzhne, east of Odesa, according to regional governor Maksym Marchenko. It plans to sail to Djibouti, where the grain will be unloaded and transferred to Ethiopia under the World Food Program initiative. Ukraine and Russia reached a deal with Turkey on July 22 to restart Black Sea grain deliveries, addressing the major export disruption that has Oboz Boots occurred since Russia invaded Ukraine in February. Ethiopia is one of five countries that the U.N. considers at risk of starvat...