AFP news

Days after the October 7 attack, Joe Biden walked onto the tarmac in Tel Aviv and offered a warm bear hug to Benjamin Netanyahu, a sign both of solid support for Israel and the US president's long, if not uncomplicated, relationship with the prime minister.

The Olympic torch relay began in Marseille on Thursday with the port city's football legend Basile Boli taking the flame in front of the iconic basilica of Notre-Dame de la Garde before passing it on to a number of other celebrity sports stars including Ukrainian gymnast Mariia Vysochanska.

Scientists Geoffrey Hawtin and Cary Fowler, who on Thursday received the prestigious World Food Prize for "their work to preserve the world's heritage of seeds", are on a mission.

President Vladimir Putin on Thursday warned his nuclear forces were "always" on alert and added that Moscow would not tolerate any Western threats, during an address on the annual Victory Day parade.

Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Hungary on Thursday seeking a "new journey" with Beijing's closest European Union ally amid divisions with the West over the Ukraine war and global trade.

The Olympic torch relay began in Marseille on Thursday with football legend Basile Boli taking the flame in front of the iconic basilica of Notre-Dame de la Garde, a day after it made a spectacular entrance by sea.

One of Malaysia's top football clubs has pulled out of Friday's season-opening Charity Shield after a spate of assaults, including an acid attack, on players in the country.

Israel shelled Rafah on Thursday as US President Joe Biden offered his starkest warning yet over the conduct of its war against Hamas, vowing to cut off arms transfers if an offensive into the southern Gaza city goes ahead.

Sudanese shop owner Ishaq Mohammed has been trapped in his home for a month, sheltering from violence in El-Fasher, the last major city in the country's vast Darfur region not under paramilitary control.

Growing up, Devante Cuthbertson assumed he might have to leave his North Carolina hometown to pursue a career, but a new multi-billion-dollar Toyota battery plant is offering him a reason to stay put.

North Macedonia appeared to be on a collision course with its EU neighbours Greece and Bulgaria, as the nationalist opposition swept parliamentary and presidential elections on Wednesday.

The death toll from devastating floods that have ravaged southern Brazil for days surpassed 100 on Wednesday, authorities said, as the search for dozens of missing people was interrupted by fresh storms.

In halting a shipment of thousands of bombs, President Joe Biden has sent his most serious signal yet both to Israel and his domestic critics, although it remains doubtful he can fundamentally alter the course of the war in Gaza.

The grass outside SOAS University of London has been dotted with a handful of tents since the start of this week, with Palestinian flags and slogans calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.

Prince Harry was in London Wednesday to mark the 10th anniversary of his Invictus Games for wounded military veterans, but no meeting was scheduled with his estranged father King Charles III. As with all his trips to the UK since he moved to the United States in 2020, his three-day visit to the British capital has sparked a fresh round of speculation about a reconciliation with his family.

Hong Kong demanded Wednesday a protest song popular during pro-democracy demonstrations be removed from the internet after a court banned it, judging it was a "weapon" to incite violent protests in 2019.

Serbia's President Aleksandar Vucic reaffirmed his strong support for China's sovereignty over Taiwan as he gave a lavish welcome to President Xi Jinping who is seeking to deepen political and economic ties with friendlier countries in Europe.

The icy peaks of Jargalant Mountain are supposed to belong to snow leopards, whose numbers have dwindled to fewer than 1,000 in Mongolia, but hard-pressed herders are increasingly pushing into the vulnerable animals' traditional habitat.

Israel struck targets in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday after seizing the main border crossing with Egypt, where negotiators were working to make good on their "last chance" to cement a ceasefire deal.

Imagine feeling like an elephant is sitting on your chest, you can't breathe, there's a sense of impending doom and the pain is so intense you want to die.

Struggling foreign automakers in China are looking for help from local tech giants to try to stay competitive in the world's biggest electric car market, where shiny smart screens, assisted driving and sophisticated map technology are in high demand.

Americans Harold Terens and Jeanne Swerlin promise their courtship is "better than Romeo and Juliet": He is 100, she's 96, and they marry next month in France, where the groom-to-be served during World War II. US Air Force veteran Terens will be honored on June 6 at a commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings in Normandy, the historic Allied operation that changed the course of the war.

Rescue workers reported on Tuesday making contact with 11 people under the rubble in a race to save dozens still unaccounted for after a building collapsed in the South African city of George killing at least seven.

Stormy Daniels, the porn star at the heart of Donald Trump's hush money case, testified in a rapt Manhattan courtroom Tuesday about a 2006 sexual encounter that precipitated the criminal trial of the former US president.

The Olympic flame is set to arrive in the French port of Marseille on Wednesday in front of a crowd of up to 150,000 people in a first major test of the hugely ambitious plans for the Paris Games.

French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday was to host Chinese leader Xi Jinping at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees mountains, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia's war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade.

Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi cast his ballot Tuesday in India's ongoing general election after giving several inflammatory campaign speeches accused of targeting minority Muslims.

The killing of the brilliant young AFP journalist Arman Soldin on the front lines in Ukraine one year ago remains a uniquely traumatic event for all of us.

In the eight years since Chinese company HBIS bought a steel mill near the eastern Serbian city of Smederevo, locals say they have been plagued by heavy air pollution and thick red dust.