POLITICS & POLICY

Moldovans went to the polls on Sunday in a tense presidential election runoff that could play a key role in the country's European future amid fears of Russian interference.

The world's biggest nature conservation conference closed in Colombia on Saturday with no agreement on a roadmap to ramp up funding for species protection.

Israel on Saturday again carried out deadly air strikes on north Gaza, where the UN calls conditions "apocalyptic", as Lebanon's Hezbollah intensified rocket fire near Israel's commercial hub of Tel Aviv, on Israel's second front.

US job growth slowed drastically in October, hit temporarily by hurricanes and labor strikes, in a final major economic snapshot at the end of a razor-edge presidential election campaign where cost-of-living worries dominated voter concerns.

Donald Trump and Kamala Harris hold dueling campaign rallies Friday in Wisconsin's largest city Milwaukee, as both candidates make frantic last-ditch appeals to wavering voters with Election Day just around the corner.

At least 10 strikes hit Beirut's southern suburbs early Friday, after the Israeli army issued evacuation orders for buildings in Hezbollah's stronghold to evacuate.

With a showman's flair and an outlaw's moustache, the Pakistani gangster dials the hotline on his own most wanted notice -- taunting the authorities who put a bounty on his head.

Cattle farmer Khairallah Yaacoub refused to leave south Lebanon despite a year of Hezbollah-Israel clashes.

The US and South Korean defense chiefs called Wednesday for North Korea to withdraw its troops from Russia, where Washington says some 10,000 of them have been deployed for possible action against Ukrainian forces.

Senior US officials were to meet their Israeli counterparts Thursday to discuss a possible deal to end the conflict in Lebanon and secure Israel's northern border from Hezbollah attacks.

North Korea said Thursday it had test-fired one of its newest and most powerful missiles to boost its nuclear deterrent, Kim Jong Un's first weapons test since being accused of sending soldiers to Russia.

Georgia's pro-European president on Wednesday refused a summons by prosecutors to give evidence after she accused the ruling party of fraud in the weekend's disputed parliamentary election.

Progress has been slow but it is relentless. "We have seen an acceleration in this progression, with the feeling that it cannot be stopped," he added, describing a "Russian strategy of pressure everywhere, all the time, while waiting for (the defence) to crack, crumble or collapse."

The US economy undershot expectations in the third quarter even as growth remained resilient, according to government data Wednesday, weighing on inflation-weary voters less than a week to the presidential election.

Political uncertainty after Japan's election shock risks slowing economic reforms, pushing up government spending and even holding up the Bank of Japan's exit from its outlier monetary policy, economists said.

Defense Industry Minister Pat Conroy said China's recent intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) test in the South Pacific particularly triggered Australia to enhance its missile stockpiles, deploy advanced naval defenses, and collaborate closely with the United States, Japan, and South Korea.

Sandra Demontigny was afraid of being a prisoner in her own body: a 45-year-old diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's, she worried about losing control of her life and burdening those she loves for years.

The Catholic Church must make it easier to remove priests who have abused minors while giving victims "access to the truth", a papal commission at the Vatican said Tuesday in its inaugural report on protecting children.

Kamala Harris will urge Americans to turn the page on Donald Trump as she delivers her closing election argument Tuesday on the spot where her rival rallied supporters before the January 6, 2021 US Capitol attack.

Iran's government has proposed tripling its military spending, an official said Tuesday, as tensions with arch-rival Israel rise following recent tit-for-tat missile strikes.

The inquiry report also highlighted the nation's "grossly inadequate" handling of the COVID pandemic. "The first lesson from this report is that like most countries, frankly, our pandemic plans were grossly inadequate for the scale of the challenge that COVID-19 presented to us," Health Minister Mark Butler said.

Israeli bombardment of Lebanon forced Mohammed Fawaz and his family to flee so often that they finally moved many kilometres (miles) away to find respite in central Iraq.

Negotiators meet in less than a month to agree on the world's first treaty to end plastic pollution, but countries remain so far apart that a deal may prove impossible.

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, whose operations in Israel were banned by the Israeli parliament on Monday, is seen by some as an "irreplaceable" humanitarian lifeline in Gaza, but as an accomplice of Hamas by others.

Manchester United sacked manager Erik ten Hag on Monday after a disastrous start to the season and are reportedly set to appoint Portuguese coach Ruben Amorim as their next boss.

Georgia's pro-European president Salome Zurabishvili in an interview with AFP Monday alleged that parliamentary polls -- whose results have been rejected by the opposition -- were marred by widespread voting fraud bearing the hallmarks of Russia's influence.

A book named "The Chairman's Lounge" revealed that Albanese declared flight upgrades on around 20 Qantas flights between 2009 and 2019, during his time as transport minister, shadow transport minister, and opposition leader.

A record number of women have been elected to Japan's house of representatives, projections showed Monday, but at less than 16 percent they remain a minority.

A nail-biting US presidential campaign heads into its final week Monday, with polls showing little daylight between the two candidates as they ramp up appeals to their respective bases to turn out and vote.