POLITICS & POLICY

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.

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak apologised on Friday for leaving the D-Day commemorations in France early to give a domestic television interview, the latest self-inflicted setback to his stuttering general election campaign.

Carlos Alcaraz outlasted Jannik Sinner in an engrossing five-set battle on Friday to reach his first French Open final, where he will face either Alexander Zverev or Casper Ruud.

As confrontation with the opposition intensified, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese asked business leaders to explore the "big opportunities" in net-zero economy.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi thanked allied lawmakers Friday for unanimously agreeing to back his third term in office, after an unexpectedly close election forced his party to rely on coalition partners to keep him in power.

The previous Coalition government launched the website for Australians to view and compare the costs for general practitioners (GPs) and medical services across the country.

The new Direction 110 gives clarity on deportation of non-citizens with a history of family or sexual violence, even if they have lived most of their lives in Australia.

Israeli strikes hammered a Gaza refugee camp on Friday after a deadly strike on a UN-run school, as the war sparked by Hamas's unprecedented attack on Israel entered its ninth month.

Mothers in crimson dresses and fathers clutching umbrellas huddled together in drizzly Beijing after sending their children into an exam hall on Friday, the first day of China's biggest "gaokao" tests that will shape the futures of millions of high school kids.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will address lawmakers in the US Congress on July 24, Republican party leaders announced Thursday.

Voters in Ireland and the Czech Republic go to the polls Friday on the second day of marathon EU elections, after the Netherlands kicked off the ballot with a strong showing by the far right.

South Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa said Thursday that his African National Congress (ANC) would seek to form a government of national unity, after failing to win an outright majority in last week's general election.

Standing in what remains of her house, partially destroyed by a Russian artillery strike, Raisa Abramtseva painted a bleak picture of her daily life in southern Ukraine's Kherson region.