Highly dangerous Category 5 Hurricane Irma rolled toward the Caribbean and southern United States, packing winds of 185 miles per hour (295 km per hour) on Tuesday, even as Texas and Louisiana still reeled from devastating Hurricane Harvey.

Pakistan on Tuesday rejected a statement by the five emerging-market BRICS powers that militant groups in Pakistan pose a regional security concern, with its defence minister saying no group operates freely inside Pakistan.

Chinese President Xi Jinping on Tuesday urged BRICS nations to deepen coordination on global matters, and push for a more "just" world order, by boosting representation for emerging and developing countries in international bodies.

President Donald Trump on Tuesday scrapped an Obama-era programme that protects from deportation immigrants brought illegally into the United States as children, delaying implementation until March and giving a gridlocked Congress six months to decide the fate of almost 800,000 young people.

A top North Korean diplomat on Tuesday warned that his country is ready to send "more gift packages" to the United States as world powers struggled for a response to Pyongyang's latest nuclear weapons test.

Russia reserves the right to cut further the number of U.S. diplomatic staff in Moscow, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday, in response to what he called Washington's "boorish" treatment of Russia's diplomatic mission on U.S. soil.