POLITICS & POLICY

Dutch former prime minister Mark Rutte will take the reins as NATO's new secretary general on Tuesday at a perilous time for the Western military alliance.

Israel carried out an air strike on a Beirut apartment block on Monday, a Lebanese security source said, killing four people in its first such raid on the heart of the city since the outbreak of the Gaza war last year.

The death toll from powerful storm Helene jumped to at least 91 on Sunday, with one county in North Carolina alone reporting 30 deaths, authorities said, as rescuers battled to reach people in need across the southeastern United States.

Austrians headed to the polls on Sunday in a general election that could see the far right narrowly beat the conservatives for a historic win in the Alpine EU nation.

Gunfire, murders and threats -- insecurity is part of everyday life across much of Mexico and one of the main challenges awaiting Claudia Sheinbaum when she becomes president on Tuesday.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Friday questioned China's sincerity in seeking peace in Ukraine as he directly pressed his counterpart over exports that boost Russia's military.

Oswards Ruiz said he had no choice but to flee Venezuela after President Nicolas Maduro claimed reelection in a July election the opposition says he stole.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's hold on power is "unsustainable" given the widespread rejection of his claim to reelection, opposition leader Maria Corina Machado told AFP on Friday.

Oscar-winning British actor Maggie Smith, a star of stage and screen for more than seven decades, died in hospital in London on Friday, her sons announced, prompting a flood of tributes led by King Charles III. "It is with great sadness we have to announce the death of Dame Maggie Smith.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to keep striking Hezbollah and fight "until victory" against Hamas, in an address to world leaders on Friday that defied calls for ceasefires in Lebanon and Gaza.

A paramilitary attack on a market in the Sudanese city of El-Fasher killed 18 people, a medical source told AFP on Friday, after world leaders appealed for an end to the country's wartime suffering.

Japan's next prime minister Shigeru Ishiba on Friday outlined his ideas to reshape the nation's miliary alliance with Washington, after winning the conservative ruling party's leadership race.

The watches are the latest products Trump has introduced since the start of his third campaign including Bibles, sneakers, photo books and cryptocurrency.

Positioning herself as a "capitalist" who believes in "free and fair markets," Harris said her policies are pragmatic rather than ideologically driven.

"I'm sure the public service are looking at policy ideas. That's because we value them. But we have our housing policy. It's out there for all to see. What our government is considering is fixing housing supply by getting our legislation through the Senate. That's what we're considering," Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said.

Chalmers' visit comes a year after Albanese made history as the first Australian prime minister to visit China in seven years.

Iran's new president on Monday accused Israel of seeking regional war, as he attempted to cast Tehran as restrained and appealed to the West for talks on flashpoint issues.

The gunman suspected of planning to kill Donald Trump on his golf course wrote a chilling letter months ago about a failed "assassination attempt" on the former US president, according to court papers filed Monday as he was remanded in custody.

Greens environment spokeswoman Sarah Hanson-Young criticized the move calling it "wrong and irresponsible," adding that it was a "climate-wrecking coal mines under laws they know are broken."

A major femicide trial opened in Italy on Monday after the brutal murder of a university student by her ex-boyfriend that triggered outrage and national soul-searching over the roots of male violence against women.

A former partner of a co-defendant in a mass rape trial that has sparked horror and protests in France broke down in tears on Monday, telling the court she had "lived a lie" and might herself have been sexually assaulted.

Bitter enemies Russia and Ukraine clashed at the world's oldest arbitration court on Monday over a long-running case about access to coastal waters around the annexed Crimea peninsula.

Sri Lanka's first leftist president was sworn in to office Monday vowing to restore public faith in politics but said he had no magic solution to the hardships suffered following an unprecedented economic crisis.

Israel's military pounded targets in south and east Lebanon on Monday and said more strikes were coming, warning Lebanese to stay out of harm's way despite international calls for restraint.

Sonia waited 32 years to see her rapists convicted, a glacially slow legal process all too common in India where half a million cases have been pending for longer than two decades.

Rohingya refugee Syed fled Myanmar for a second time last month, after he was forced to fight alongside the military that drove his family out of their homeland years earlier.

Hamas's multipronged attack on southern Israel on October 7 was unprecedented in scale.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer promised to protect public services and ruled out austerity measures as the Labour Party's annual conference kicked off on Sunday, its first in 15 years as a governing party.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz's Social Democrats narrowly beat the far-right AfD in a state election Sunday in the formerly communist east, initial projections by public broadcasters said.