POLITICS & POLICY

People in an Indonesian village watched as a tower of loudspeakers mounted on a truck rumbled through their usually serene home, blasting a thumping bass loud enough to crack windows.

Desperate Palestinians clutching pots and plastic buckets scrambled for rice at a charity kitchen in Gaza City on Saturday, a day after the United Nations declared a famine in the war-battered territory.

A wrongly deported Salvadoran man sent back to the United States during a fierce row over President Donald Trump's hardline immigration policies was released Friday from prison, where he had been detained on human smuggling charges.

The United Nations on Friday officially declared a famine in Gaza, the first time it has done so in the Middle East, with experts warning 500,000 people face "catastrophic" hunger.

At a wine shop in Washington's Capitol Hill neighborhood, bottles sourced from Europe are becoming costlier to import -- and soon, pricier for customers to buy, the owner says -- thanks to a resident just down the road in the White House.

The United Nations officially declared a famine in Gaza on Friday, blaming "systematic obstruction of aid" by Israel, hours after Defence Minister Israel Katz threatened to destroy the territory's largest city.

The US and EU released details of a trade deal Thursday that foresees lower car tariffs but no relief for Europe's wine sector, but Brussels said it would push for further concessions.

It has become a tradition Argentina's capital Buenos Aires: each Wednesday, baton-wielding riot police corral or confront a band of protesters brandishing signs, shopping bags and walking frames.

On the streets of Sudan's capital Khartoum, builders clear rubble from houses pockmarked with bullet holes, haul away fallen trees and repair broken power lines, in the city's first reconstruction effort since war began over two years ago.

Israel's defence minister approved a plan on Wednesday for the conquest of Gaza City and authorised the call-up of around 60,000 reservists, piling pressure on Hamas as mediators push for a ceasefire.

Serbian anti-government protesters accused police Tuesday of beating and threatening detained activists, fuelling fears of a spiralling crackdown after a week of violent clashes.

A senior Israeli official on Tuesday said the government stood firm on its call for the release of all hostages in any future Gaza deal, after Hamas accepted a new truce proposal.

At the Rafah crossing into the Gaza Strip, hundreds of aid trucks sat unmoving in the Egyptian desert, stuck for days with only a handful allowed through by Israel to relieve the humanitarian disaster across the border.

Hamas has accepted a new ceasefire proposal for Gaza without requesting amendments, a source from the group told AFP Monday, after a fresh diplomatic push to end more than 22 months of war.

Laughter erupts over a board game and coffee at a rural cottage in China's eastern province of Zhejiang, one of a growing number of women-only co-living spaces far from social pressures and male judgment.

Demonstrators took to the streets across Israel Sunday calling for an end to the war in Gaza and a deal to release hostages still held by militants, as the military prepares a new offensive.

Over four decades of war, Afghanistan wielded limited control over five major river basins that flow across its borders into downstream neighbouring nations.

On a recent weekday, Diego Galdino was on the hunt for pickpockets in central London, patrolling tourist hotspots for familiar suspects and telltale signs of those about to commit thefts.

US President Donald Trump and Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin meet Friday in Alaska in a high-stakes, high-risk summit that could prove decisive for the future of Ukraine.

A giant cruise ship dominates the skyline in the city of El Alto in landlocked Bolivia, a symbol of the transformation of an Indigenous bastion keenly fought over in Sunday's presidential election.

US President Donald Trump on Thursday acknowledged his high-stakes summit with Vladimir Putin may fail, and said any Ukraine deal would come through a future three-way meeting with Kyiv to "divvy things up."

Cholera has claimed at least 40 lives in Sudan's Darfur region over the last week as the country weathers its worst outbreak of in years, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said on Thursday.

The powerful sister of North Korea's leader on Thursday denied reports by the South Korean military that Pyongyang has started removing loudspeakers used in tit-for-tat propaganda wars along their border.

At US President Donald Trump's new migrant detention center in the Florida Everglades, time has no discernible meaning.

El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele has tightened his grip on power and made life ever-more difficult for critics -- now a growing number face the prospect of a long and painful exile.

Russia's offensive in eastern Ukraine was gaining speed and seizing more ground Wednesday ahead of a summit in Alaska between US President Donald Trump and Russia's Vladimir Putin.

The Israeli military said on Wednesday it had approved the framework for a new offensive in the Gaza Strip, as Hamas condemned what it called "aggressive" Israeli ground incursions in Gaza City.

In a small urban park in Taiwan, more than 4,000 names are etched into a granite wall -- most of them British and American servicemen held by the Japanese during World War II. The sombre memorial sits on the site of Kinkaseki, a brutal prisoner of war camp near Taipei and one of more than a dozen run by Japan on the island it ruled from 1895 until its defeat in 1945.

Paul Pogba's return to Monaco this summer set tongues wagging as the 2018 World Cup winner made his comeback to football after nearly three seasons on the sidelines -- a turbulent period blighted by injury, blackmail and an 18-month doping ban.