AFP news

The Bank of England on Thursday kept its key interest rate at 5.0 percent, deciding against consecutive cuts one day after a bumper reduction from the US Federal Reserve.

Senior United Nations officials warned on Wednesday that hundreds of thousands of lives are at risk in the besieged Sudanese town of El-Fasher, amid signs that the fighting could soon escalate.

YouTuber MrBeast has been named in a lawsuit claiming participants in his $5 million jackpot game show were exploited.

Canada announced Wednesday it was slashing international student permits next year, and tightening foreign worker rules to further bring down the number of temporary residents in the country.

Feel drained after a long video call? Whether for work meetings, distance learning at school or just catching up with friends and family, video calls have become a part of daily life for many people -- particularly since the Covid pandemic.

The development of artificial intelligence should not be guided by market forces alone, UN experts cautioned on Thursday, calling for the creation of tools for global cooperation.

Hundreds of pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah exploded across Lebanon in unprecedented attacks this week, killing 32 people and wounding more than 3,000 others.

Hezbollah was in disarray on Thursday after a second wave of deadly explosions swept through its strongholds across Lebanon, putting pressure on its leader to exact revenge for the operation it blames on Israel.

With its medieval church and picturesque village green, the tranquil hamlet of Friston in eastern England should be an unlikely place for a showdown with the UK government and an energy giant.

Subsidized food, without which most Cubans would not eat at all, is becoming ever more scarce and expensive as the government, battling sanctions, struggles to pay for imports.

China presents the top challenge to the United States in all of its history, surpassing the Cold War, a top US official said Wednesday, as he urged Europe to get tougher on Beijing.

Russia's counteroffensive to retake Ukrainian-held territory in the Kursk region has been "stopped", a spokesman from Ukraine's military administration there told AFP on Wednesday, after Moscow said it was beginning to repel the surprise incursion.

With full military honours and proud family members looking on, two Allied servicemen were laid to rest Wednesday, 80 years after giving their lives to liberate Europe from the Nazis.

A Chinese naval formation led by the Liaoning aircraft carrier sailed through waters northeast of Taiwan on Wednesday and continued towards the southeast of Japan's Yonaguni Island, Taipei's government said.

An EU court on Wednesday scrapped a 1.49-billion euro ($1.65 billion) fine imposed by Brussels against Google over abuse of dominance in online advertising.

Russian operatives are ramping up disinformation operations to malign Vice President Kamala Harris's campaign by disseminating conspiracy-laden videos, Microsoft said Tuesday, amid heightened alert over foreign influence operations targeting the US election.

Stock markets were little changed and the dollar was down slightly Wednesday as investors awaited the US Federal Reserve's first interest rate cut in more than four years.

Japan's new prime minister will be formally elected by parliament on October 1 following next week's leadership contest, a ruling party official said Wednesday.

Tupperware Brands and some of its subsidiaries have filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and are seeking a buyer, the food container firm said, after years of dwindling sales.

Each year the world produces around 400 million tonnes of plastic waste, much of it discarded after just a few minutes of use.

Hezbollah vowed on Wednesday to punish Israel for a deadly attack in which hundreds of paging devices used by the militant group's members exploded almost simultaneously across Lebanon.

Ratcliffe-on-Soar Power Station has dominated the landscape of the English East Midlands for nearly 60 years, looming over the small town of the same name and a landmark on the M1 motorway bisecting Derby and Nottingham.

Factory roofs blown off, products worth millions of dollars destroyed, supply chains disrupted: Typhoon Yagi has had a disastrous impact on local and global companies in northern Vietnam who could take months to recover, business leaders warn.

Almost 200 environmental activists were murdered last year, with the toll especially heavy in South America, according to rights group Global Witness.

As the female winemaker who put Chinese vintages on the map for the first time, Zhang Jing of Helan Qingxue winery is a trailblazer, but no anomaly.

North Korea fired a salvo of short-range ballistic missiles early Wednesday, Seoul's military said, Pyongyang's second such weapons test in a week.

Indian-administered Kashmir began voting Wednesday in the first local elections since the cancellation of its special semi-autonomous status sparked fury in the troubled Himalayan territory, which is also claimed by Pakistan.

Bayern Munich became the first team to score nine goals in a game in the modern Champions League as the new format of Europe's elite club competition kicked off on Tuesday, with title holders Real Madrid and Liverpool also among the winners.

Negotiators from Boeing and the machinists union representing its workers resumed talks Tuesday after some 33,000 employees went on strike late last week, effectively shutting down two Seattle-area factories.