Sitting for green tea with Habiba Gulustani and her fellow activists provides a lesson in peace, conflict and patience. With her anxious six-year-old daughter spinning on her lap, she has the added disquiet of knowing that her city – Kunduz – was overrun in 2015 and again briefly in 2016 by insurgents, who still encircle the city. The few small airplanes that land here make a classic “corkscrew” landing – from a high altitude and quickly looping down – as a special precaution against potential ground fire.

A quarter of all thyroid cancer cases among patients who were children at the time of the Chernobyl accident 32 years ago, are “probably” due to high doses of radiation received during and after the event, the United Nations body reviewing the effects of atomic radiation on human health and the environment has said.

The world’s nuclear proliferation watchdog has welcomed the announcement by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) to suspend its nuclear and missile tests and shut down its Punggye-ri atomic test site.

International donors at a United Nations-European Union humanitarian conference pledged nearly $4.4 billion on Wednesday to fund critical aid programmes in war-torn Syria throughout 2018.