POLITICS & POLICY

NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban agreed on Wednesday that Budapest would "not block" the defence alliance from contributing more to Ukraine's fight against Russia's invasion.

Britain's economy stagnated in April after emerging from recession in the first quarter of the year, official data showed Wednesday, dealing a setback to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak ahead of next month's general election.

US consumer inflation continued to cool last month, according to US government data published Wednesday, giving the US Federal Reserve some positive news shortly before it publishes its latest interest rate decision.

Deadly fighting rocked Gaza on Wednesday as US top diplomat Antony Blinken on a Middle East tour pushed for an elusive truce and hostage release deal to end the war raging since October 7.

While Liberal MP Bridget Archer called Dutton's stance on reducing the target of emission levels as "regressive," some called the party's discussion on the topic "nonsense" and "messy."

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's battle with migrant rescue charities is increasingly ending up in court, with judges often siding with NGOs but not yet calling the law into question.

Hundreds of thousands of Muslims have flocked to the Saudi holy city of Mecca for the hajj pilgrimage unfolding this year in the shadow of the Gaza war.

After the roar of Israeli warplanes terrified her baby grandson, Umm Hassan's family sought solace on a south Lebanon beach, hoping to escape the escalating cross-border violence.

French singer Francoise Hardy, whose crystalline voice and melancholy lyrics shot her to international stardom in the 1960s, has died at the age of 80, according to her son.

Norway's Karsten Warholm fired out a broadside at Olympic contenders in the run-in to the Paris Games by winning a third successive European title in Rome on Tuesday as a galaxy of global stars showcased some scintillating form.

When Hong Kong author Kay So left her home city in 2020, she had in her luggage two short stories she had written about the huge, at times violent democracy protests that upended the city in 2019.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will hold talks with key Israeli opposition figures on Tuesday, a day after he arrived in the country to push a ceasefire plan for the war in Gaza.

President Emmanuel Macron said Monday that he was confident French voters would make the "right choice" in snap elections he called after the far right crushed his centrist alliance in Sunday's EU ballot.

Environments groups have warned that if Australia breached the climate agreement, it could affect trade negotiations and harm international relations in the Pacific.

Russia on Monday claimed the capture of another village in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region, the latest in a string of gains ahead of a major Ukraine summit in Switzerland.

North Korea has sent hundreds more trash-carrying balloons toward South Korea, Seoul's military said Monday, after Kim Jong Un's powerful sister warned of further responses if the South keeps up its "psychological warfare".

World leaders from countries around the world will gather in Switzerland this weekend to try to work out a way towards a peace process for Ukraine -- albeit without Russia.

At her lowest point, fighting burnout and depression in her Chinese hometown, Huang Bingbing says she found comfort in watching the escapist love story of two young men on a then-unknown Thai TV drama.

The United States stepped up pressure Monday for a Gaza ceasefire with a call for a UN Security Council vote on a truce as it redeployed Washington's top diplomat to the region scarred by eight months of war.

French President Emmanuel Macron has taken the biggest gamble of his political career by calling early legislative elections to combat the surge of the far right, with the outcome decisive for his political legacy.

Hardly a third of Bulgarians voted in the Balkan EU member's sixth parliamentary elections in three years on Sunday, with the party of conservative former premier Boyko Borisov coming in first, but more political uncertainty looming.

Benny Gantz, who quit Israel's war cabinet Sunday, is a centrist politician with dreams of toppling Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government.

Carlos Alcaraz fought back to defeat Alexander Zverev in a five-set French Open final on Sunday and become the youngest man to win Grand Slam titles on all three surfaces.

Israelis on Sunday cheered the rescue of four hostages from war-torn Gaza while Palestinians counted the cost, with Hamas officials saying 274 people were killed and hundreds wounded during the daytime raid.

Humanitarian aid began trickling back into the devastated Gaza Strip on Saturday via a rebuilt, temporary pier, US forces said.

It might have been the longest wait but on Saturday 100-year-old American World War II veteran Harold Terens married his 96-year-old fiancee in Normandy, just days after being honoured on the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings in northwestern France.

Israel pressed its bombardment of Gaza on Saturday as a war cabinet minister looked set to carry through on his threat to quit a government under mounting pressure over its conduct of the military campaign.

Slovakia on Saturday kicks off the final two days of voting in EU-wide elections, under the shadow of last month's shooting of Prime Minister Robert Fico.

A Moscow court on Friday ordered a French citizen accused of gathering Russian military information to be held in pre-trial detention, in the latest case of a Western citizen being detained in Russia.