Vienna / AFP Natural disasters have caused more than $7 trillion (6.2 trillion euros) in economic damage worldwide since 1900, with floods and storms accounting for nearly 60 percent of the total, researchers said. The death toll from such natural calamities — which also include earthquakes, volcanoes, droughts, heatwaves and wildfires — topped eight million from 1900 to 2015, …

  Kabul / AFP At least 30 people were killed and hundreds wounded when a Taliban truck bomb tore through central Kabul on Tuesday, triggering a fierce firefight, a week after the insurgents launched their annual spring offensive. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack in a densely crowded neighbourhood, which sent clouds of acrid smoke billowing into the sky …

  Istanbul / AFP The death toll from rocket strikes on a Turkish town from an area in Syria controlled by extremists rose to five on Tuesday after another Syrian child died in hospital, reports said. Four Syrian children are now confirmed to have been killed in the strikes by Katyusha-type rockets Monday afternoon on the town of Kilis on …

  Washington / AFP US President Barack Obama said he expects Iraq’s second city Mosul to be retaken from the IS group “eventually”. Obama’s comments in an interview with CBS News came on the same day that Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said Washington would send Apache attack helicopters and more troops to Iraq. “As we see the Iraqis willing to …

  Sydney / AFP Investigators were on Tuesday examining two more pieces of debris for clues to the fate of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, along with marine life found on two other items which “almost certainly” came from the lost jet. The latest two pieces—one found in South Africa and another on the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius—were brought to …

  BEIRUT / AP Fighting intensified on Tuesday in northern and central Syria as government forces sought to repel rebel advances on a government stronghold. A chief opposition negotiator meanwhile said the conditions on the ground were not conducive to political talks. Rebels and activists reported fighting in rural parts of northern Latakia province, a government stronghold, one day after …

  London / AFP A replica of one of the most iconic monuments destroyed by IS extremists in the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra was being unveiled in London’s Trafalgar Square on Tuesday. The six-metre-tall scale recreation of the Triumphal Arch is made of Egyptian marble and was carved in the northern Italian region of Tuscany using precision digital technology …

  Seoul / Reuters South Korea’s central bank kept interest rates untouched on Tuesday for a 10th straight month, and its governor stressed that the current rate level supports economic growth, although a lowered growth forecast for this year kept expectations of a rate cut alive. The Bank of Korea (BOK) committee held its base rate steady at 1.50 percent, …

  Bloomberg The strengthening krona may force Sweden’s central bank to add stimulus again as criticism mounts that its unprecedented policy moves are threatening stability in the largest Nordic economy. While all 20 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg predict that the main rate will be kept unchanged at a record low of minus 0.5 percent, the Riksbank may extend its government …

  Reuters Samba Financial Group, Saudi Arabia’s third-largest bank by assets, reported a 1.4 percent drop in first-quarter net profit on Tuesday, in line with analyst forecasts. The bank made a profit of 1.26 billion riyals ($336.1 million) in the three months to March 31, down from 1.28 billion riyals in the same period a year earlier, it said in …