AFP news

H&M chief executive Helena Helmersson announced Wednesday she was stepping down, sending shares in the fashion retailer tumbling as the Swedish company reported lower-than-expected profits in the fourth quarter.

Thailand's progressive Move Forward Party, which won most seats at the last election, was Wednesday ordered to stop campaigning to reform the kingdom's tough royal defamation laws, as a top court ruled the policy was unlawful.

While most of the world treats Afghanistan's Taliban government as a pariah, China is growing diplomatic and economic links -- and Kabul is happy for the attention.

Former Pakistan prime minister Imran Khan was sentenced Wednesday to 14 years in jail on a graft charge, a day after he was given a 10-year prison term in verdicts handed down just a week before national elections.

Weak sales, deserting advertisers, falling revenues and unpaid wages: Niger's newspaper industry has been buffeted by sanctions imposed on the country after military officers seized power in July.

After a drone attack killed three American soldiers in Jordan on Sunday near the Syrian and Iraq borders, Washington immediately accused "radical Iran-backed militant groups operating in Syria and Iraq".

The Israeli army said Tuesday it is channelling water into Gaza's tunnels in a bid to destroy the sprawling underground network used by Hamas militants to launch attacks on Israel.

Wavering world leaders were told Tuesday to speed up efforts to agree a global treaty on avoiding a new pandemic catastrophe -- four years to the day since Covid-19 was declared an international emergency.

North Korea said Wednesday it successfully test-fired a strategic cruise missile, part of a selection of recently launched weapons that analysts warn could be destined for Russia's war in Ukraine.

Anticorruption activists around the world have high hopes for a new US law that for the first time allows Washington to prosecute foreign officials who receive bribes.

Four Pakistan servicemen and two civilians were among 15 killed in an hours-long gun battle with Balochistan militants in the southwest of the country, the military said.

Once a byword for environmental disaster due to its heavy industry and mining, the city of Bitterfeld-Wolfen is poised to become a key site for Germany's ambitious green transition.

Retired nurse Nga put her life savings into a bond at Vietnam's SCB bank, but now cannot access her money after being caught up with tens of thousands in a multibillion-dollar scam that has shocked the nation.

One morning last October as the dawn light touched the cold hills of northern Myanmar a barrage of rockets and drones streaked through the sky and slammed into dugouts and bases housing military troops.

A judge in the US state of Delaware voided the $56 billion compensation package of Tesla chief executive Elon Musk on Tuesday, siding with a shareholder who claimed the entrepreneur was overpaid.

Turkey's parliament on Tuesday formally ousted a jailed opposition lawmaker whose election created a politically-charged standoff between the country's two top courts.

Polling as the most popular leader in Latin America -- possibly even the world -- El Salvador's Nayib Bukele has inspired calls for hard-handed tactics across a region tired of violence and losing faith in democracy.

Microsoft and Google delivered solid corporate earnings on Tuesday as the tech giants said demand for artificial intelligence services stoked revenue.

Samsung Electronics on Wednesday reported a 34.57 percent drop in operating profits for the fourth quarter of 2023, as the company struggles with weak demand for consumer devices.

More than two-thirds of musicians fear that artificial intelligence will make it impossible to make a living, according to a study by French and German music societies published Tuesday.

British MPs on Tuesday called on the music industry to clean up its act, as it laid bare a catalogue of misogyny, discrimination and sexual abuse in a damning report.

Chita Rivera, who electrified Broadway stages over six decades in shows including "West Side Story" and "Chicago" as one of the foremost entertainers of her generation, died Tuesday at age 91, her publicist said.

US President Joe Biden said Tuesday he had decided on a response to a drone strike that killed three American troops in Jordan, while insisting he did not want a wider war in the Middle East.

Google parent Alphabet on Tuesday credited artificial intelligence with helping boost profits in the final quarter of last year.

Even as her home country of Cuba crumbled around her, Elsa resisted joining the growing US-bound exodus until she felt she had no options left.

Britain's top climate change advisory body on Tuesday accused Prime Minister Rishi Sunak of creating "mixed signals and a perception of "slowing UK climate ambition", as it demanded renewed action.

A message on X asked a major French channel to verify what seemed to be a Deutsche Welle report about a Ukrainian artist who "sawed down the Eiffel Tower."

South Africa's former President Jacob Zuma was suspended from the ruling African National Congress (ANC) on Monday, weeks after he backed another party ahead of this year's general elections.

An Iranian and two Canadians, including a member of the Hells Angels motorcycle gang, have been indicted for allegedly conspiring to assassinate Iranian dissidents on US soil, officials said Monday.