POLITICS & POLICY

Glittering with sequins and sweat, thousands of performers shimmying to sultry samba beats danced their way down an avenue in Rio de Janeiro Sunday as the Brazilian beach city's famed carnival parades got under way.

The threat of an Israeli incursion into Gaza's southernmost town of Rafah persisted Sunday, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promising "safe passage" to civilians displaced there.

Indonesia will hold one of the world's biggest one-day elections next week -- a mind-boggling feat that involves shifting votes by boat, plane and horseback across the vast archipelago of more than 278 million people.

Indonesians vote in a presidential election Wednesday with Defence Minister Prabowo Subianto the clear favourite after a campaign mixing nationalist rhetoric and pledges to continue the era of popular outgoing leader Joko Widodo.

They are only teenagers, but a pair of New Jersey high school students -- one Jewish and one Muslim -- are tackling an issue much bigger than themselves, bridging divides in their suburb shaken by the Israel-Hamas war.

Senegalese security forces on Friday used tear gas to disperse people attempting to gather in the capital after being urged to mobilise against a last-minute delay of presidential elections.

Israel launched new air strikes Friday on the city of Rafah in Gaza's far south, after US President Joe Biden said its response to Hamas's October 7 attack has been "over the top".

A Nazi henchman as a drooling gorilla with a swastika armband. Bloch outlived the Nazi regime but his mother and sisters were rounded up and murdered in the camps.

Israel conducted fresh strikes on southern Gaza's overcrowded border town of Rafah on Friday, where more than a million displaced Palestinians have sought shelter, with key backer the United States warning of a looming "disaster".

More than two decades after the outbreak of war in Darfur, fears are growing that the world has abandoned its people as a new conflict ravages Sudan and the perpetrators of atrocities act with impunity.

Independent candidates linked to jailed former prime minister Imran Khan were outperforming expectations Friday in Pakistan's election, local TV tallies showed, as a slow trickle of official results sparked fears of a fix.

A majority of justices on the US Supreme Court appeared to be leaning on Thursday towards rejecting a ruling by a state court that would bar Donald Trump from running for president again.

In Israel's biblical city of Nazareth, the basilica is empty, restaurants and shops that usually thrive on Christian pilgrims are closed, and many hotels have been shut for months.

Iraq on Thursday condemned a US air strike that killed a senior commander from a pro-Iran armed group accused of having been involved in attacks on American troops in the region.

West African foreign ministers hold emergency talks on Thursday confronted by a major political crisis in Senegal and weakened by disputes with military rulers in three coup-hit countries.

Millions of Pakistanis began voting Thursday in an election marred by allegations of poll rigging, with the country's most popular politician in jail and a military-favoured candidate tipped to win.

Anger over rising prices and wages that don't stretch far enough brought thousands of casino workers onto the streets of Las Vegas in recent months, part of a wave of labor discontent in the United States.

Senegal's recent decision to delay presidential elections until December "taints the long tradition of democracy" in the country and should be reversed, the EU has said, after the move plunged the normally stable West African nation into crisis.

President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday described the October 7 attack by Hamas on Israel as the "biggest anti-Semitic massacre of our century" as he hosted a ceremony paying tribute to the French victims.

Ukraine urged the West on Wednesday to speed up and increase deliveries of artillery shells after a "massive" new Russian missile attack on Kyiv and other regions killed at least five people and wounded more than 40.

As dawn broke over Luang Prabang, saffron-robed monks trod the streets receiving alms -- but a cacophonous influx of camera-clutching tourists shattered the peace of the ancient Laotian town.

Rome's most majestic forum has recovered some of its former glory with a partial reconstruction of the imposing columns of Trajan's basilica -- using funds from a now-sanctioned Russian oligarch.

As political and racial persecution grew worse in his native Mauritania, Barry looked for a way out.

The Senegalese opposition on Tuesday denounced a "constitutional coup" after parliament voted to delay the presidential election by 10 months, plunging the normally stable country into its worst crisis in decades.

Pakistan's politicians hit the campaign trail Tuesday for the last time ahead of a general election that pollsters say has left the nation of 240 million at its most "discouraged" in years.

Ravaged by grief, bearing torches and holding up portraits of their lost families, thousands of earthquake survivors gathered in the pre-dawn hours on Tuesday for the first anniversary of Turkey's worst disaster of modern times.

Less than two years after Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos was swept to power, his family's alliance with his firebrand predecessor Rodrigo Duterte has been shattered.

King Charles III has been diagnosed with cancer and has begun treatment, Buckingham Palace said on Monday, just a week after he was discharged from hospital following prostate surgery.

El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele has proclaimed his landslide reelection victory, attributed to a wildly popular crackdown on violent gangs, as an historic drubbing of the opposition in a democracy.