POLITICS & POLICY

A shadowy political party that ruled Karachi for more than three decades, overseeing the city's descent into a swamp of organised crime, has risen from the ashes in Pakistan's tainted elections.

Asif Ali Zardari, the widower of Pakistan's slain first female premier Benazir Bhutto who has had a life storied equally by tragedy and farce, is set to become president for a second time on Saturday.

A jury in New York on Friday found former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernandez guilty of trafficking hundreds of tons of cocaine into the United States, enriching himself while protecting and abetting some of the region's most infamous drug cartels.

People around the world marked International Women's Day Friday with protests, demonstrations and celebrations.

Nigeria's President Bola Ahmed Tinubu on Friday sent troops to rescue more than 250 pupils kidnapped by gunmen from a school in the country's northwest in one of the largest mass abductions in three years.

"I don't sleep anymore," Latifa Abu Hamid said while looking at pictures of her children hanging on the walls of her living room, two women and 10 men.

US President Joe Biden warned Israel on Thursday that it cannot use aid as a "bargaining chip" in its fight against Hamas and called for an immediate temporary ceasefire in Gaza, where fears of a looming famine have multiplied.

Student activist Lin Lin led protests against Myanmar's junta, defying the generals for months before being hunted down and caught.

President Joe Biden launched a fiery attack on his "dangerous" November presidential election rival Donald Trump in Thursday's State of the Union address, warning that US democracy is under "assault."

As a teenager, Victor Rodriguez felt excluded from his religion for being gay, but now he's welcome at inclusive masses in a Mexico City church, where same-sex couples have also begun receiving blessings with the pope's endorsement.

The Dalai Lama, wrapped in red and yellow robes, urged chanting monks and nuns in his latest public prayers to help heal the world with their "compassionate heart".

China's foreign minister gave a rare press conference to foreign media on Thursday, outlining Beijing's positions on major global issues as it holds annual political meetings known as the Two Sessions.

Kimono-clad Mayuko Kashiwazaki delivers her lines in guttural tones and transforms into an evil snake in the lead role of a Japanese Noh play where, unusually, most of the cast are women.

China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi lashed out against the United States and praised his country's partnership with Russia on Thursday, in a wide-ranging press conference where he called the war in Gaza a "disgrace for civilisation".

The armorer who loaded the gun that killed a cinematographer on the set of the Alec Baldwin movie "Rust" was convicted Wednesday of involuntary manslaughter.

Israel's war cabinet, seen as a symbol of national unity in the war against Hamas, has been shaken by political rivalry between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and centrist Benny Gantz, analysts say.

Bumblebees and chimpanzees can learn skills from their peers so complicated that they could never have mastered them on their own, an ability previously thought to be unique to humans, two studies said on Wednesday.

The UN Security Council expressed its concern over the deteriorating situation in violence-gripped Haiti on Wednesday, as Washington ramped up pressure on absent Prime Minister Ariel Henry to secure a political settlement.

Senegalese voters should finally head to the polls at the end of March, following a string of announcements late Wednesday marking the latest twist in weeks of crisis triggered by the delay to the presidential election.

Ukraine stepped up attacks behind Russian lines on Wednesday with the apparent killing of a Russian election official in a car bomb and a drone assault on a metals plant.

A surprise deal reached one year ago to mend ties with Iran has paid dividends for Saudi Arabia, largely shielding it from the Israel-Hamas war and related unrest, analysts say.

From the outside, Seoul's main hospitals seem unchanged: ambulances pull up, patients walk in, staff in white coats walk around purposefully.

Forced to flee her home by Israeli bombardment, Asmaa Ahmed gave birth in the middle of the night in a Gaza City school that had no electricity.

Children have begun starving to death in Gaza, where the United Nations has warned a famine is "almost inevitable."

Polls began closing Tuesday on the biggest day of the year for US presidential primaries, with Donald Trump expected to cement his hold on the Republican nomination and set up a rematch with President Joe Biden in November.

British actress Charlotte Lewis on Tuesday told a French court she had been the victim of a "smear campaign" after she accused Franco-Polish filmmaker Roman Polanski of sexually abusing her as a teenager.

When US President Joe Biden gives his State of the Union speech on Thursday, it will be the culmination of three months' intensive work for his speechwriters.

The US Supreme Court on Monday removed a potential hurdle to Donald Trump's bid to recapture the White House, unanimously dismissing a state court ruling that could have barred him from the ballot for engaging in insurrection.

The French parliament voted Monday to anchor the right to abortion in the constitution, making France the first country in the world to offer explicit protection for terminating a pregnancy in its basic law.