Australia, quickly becoming one of most-vaccinated nations against COVID-19, will likely start administering the shots for children under the age of 12 in January, officials said on Sunday.   

Schools in New Delhi will be closed for a week and construction sites for four days, the Indian capital's chief minister said on Saturday, as the city tries to protect people in a worsening air pollution crisis.

* Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Saturday that Western countries, rather than Belarus, were ultimately responsible for a migrant crisis on the Belarus-Poland border, pointing to wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

* EU foreign ministers will widen sanctions on Belarus on Monday to include airlines and travel agencies thought to involved in bringing migrants to the bloc's border, the European Union's foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said. The bloc's foreign ministers are due to meet on Monday.

* A group of about 50 migrants broke through defences on the border with Belarus and entered Poland near the village of Starzyna, police said on Sunday, as the situation on the frontier becomes increasingly tense.

* Russia has started supplying India with S-400 air defence missile systems, Russian news agencies reported on Sunday citing Dmitry Shugayev, the head of the Russian military cooperation agency.

* Kuwait's Emir Sheikh Nawaf al-Ahmed al-Sabah accepted on Sunday the resignation of the government, state news agency KUNA reported. Prime Minister Sheikh Sabah al-Khalid al-Sabah submitted the resignation of his cabinet on Nov. 8.

* Bulgarians began voting on Sunday in a third parliamentary election this year. Polls will close at 8 p.m. (1800 GMT).

* Argentines head to the polls on Sunday for midterm elections that will establish the power balance in Congress, with the ruling party battling to avoid damaging losses that could erase its majority in the Senate held for almost 40 years.

* Brazil has registered 14,642 new cases of coronavirus over the last 24 hours, the Health Ministry said on Saturday. The country had 731 new COVID-19 deaths.

* Mexico reported 217 new confirmed deaths from COVID-19 on Saturday, bringing the country's official death toll from the pandemic to 291,089, according to health ministry data.

* Three German state health ministers urged parties negotiating to form a new government to prolong states' power to implement stricter pandemic measures such as lockdowns or school closures as the country's seven-day COVID incidence rate hit record highs.

* Morocco will conduct rapid COVID-19 tests to passengers arriving in its airports and ports, and will deny access to any visitor with a positive result, the government said on Saturday.

* Italy reported 53 coronavirus-related deaths on Saturday against 68 the day before, the health ministry said, while the daily tally of new infections edged up to 8,544 from 8,516.

* The United Kingdom recorded 157 deaths from COVID-19 and a further 38,351 cases on Saturday, official data showed.

* Algeria will impose a 9% value-added tax on white and raw sugar from early next year to reduce imports and address health issues, Prime Minister Ayman Benabderrahmane said on Saturday.

* The death toll from a fuel tanker explosion in Sierra Leone's capital on Nov. 5 has risen to 144 from a previous estimate of 115, health ministry data showed on Saturday.

* Israel is working for the release of an Israeli couple being held in Turkey, denying allegations carried by Turkish state media that the two were spies, the Israeli prime minister said.

* At least 68 prisoners were killed and more than two dozen injured in overnight violence at Ecuador's Penitenciaria del Litoral prison, the government said on Saturday, in what officials characterize as fights among rival gangs.

* Western Australia's emergency services issued a bushfire warning on Sunday for an out of control blaze east of the state capital Perth that was threatening homes and lives.

Reuters