AFP news

Banking giant HSBC said on Tuesday that pre-tax profit more than doubled to $21.7 billion in the first half of 2023, boosted by higher interest rates.

A missile strike on a residential building killed six and wounded dozens in Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's hometown on Monday, as Russia said it stepped up strikes against military facilities in response to attacks on its territory, including Moscow.

Two men set the Koran alight outside parliament in Stockholm on Monday, an AFP reporter saw, at a protest similar to previous ones that have sparked tensions between Sweden and Muslim nations.

Myanmar's junta extended the country's state of emergency by six months on Monday, signalling a delay to elections they had pledged to hold as the military battles anti-coup fighters across the country.

After bust-ups with Mali and Burkina Faso, France is now watching its relationship with Niger spiral downwards following the Sahel's third military takeover in as many years.

The company formerly known as Twitter removed a towering, blinking X from atop its San Francisco headquarters Monday after the rebranded tech firm tangled with city officials over the controversial sign.

The Euclid space telescope, launched July 1 on a mission to shed more light on elusive dark matter and dark energy, has reached its destination orbit and on Monday its European operators revealed its first test images.

US officials met with Taliban representatives in Doha, where they denounced the deteriorating human rights situation in Afghanistan -- particularly for women and girls, according to a statement from the State Department on Monday.

At least four people were killed including a 10-year-old child after a Russian missile attack on the central Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rig on Monday, officials said.

Chinese authorities announced new measures to boost consumption on Monday, as fresh economic data suggested that the country's post-Covid recovery is running out of steam and growth is slowing.

Frustration as other foreign nationals were set free. The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has classified his detention as arbitrary and confirmed the family's details on his abduction.

Automatic weapons and anti-tank fire shook south Lebanon's Ain al-Helweh Palestinian refugee camp on Monday, after fighting killed six people over the weekend, an AFP correspondent said.

Blood-stained chairs, scattered ball bearings and shoes shed by the dead, wounded and panicked bore testimony Monday to the carnage caused by a suicide bombing at a Pakistan political event.

Markets rallied Monday, tracing another bump on Wall Street, where investors cheered a further slowdown in US inflation that stoked optimism the Federal Reserve will not have to hike interest rates again.

Iraq, which borders with Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia, has long been a transit country for the region's ballooning trade in the amphetamine-type drug and other narcotics.

At least 44 people were killed and more than 100 others wounded Sunday by a suicide bombing at a political gathering of a leading Islamic party in northwest Pakistan, officials said.

Authorities from Afghanistan's vice ministry created a bonfire of confiscated musical instruments and equipment in Herat province at the weekend, deeming music immoral.

Nouhaila Benzina became the first player to wear a hijab during a Women's World Cup game when she sported the Muslim headscarf in Morocco's match against South Korea on Sunday.

Sweltering without air conditioning during the day and plunged into darkness at night, many Egyptians have responded with anger and ridicule to government measures for reducing energy consumption.

Russia said on Sunday it had downed Ukrainian drones targeting Moscow and the Crimea peninsula in attacks that damaged two office towers in the capital and briefly shut an international airport.

They have known each other for decades, rubbing shoulders at countless international events, but there is little love lost between US President Joe Biden and Benjamin Netanyahu as the Israeli prime minister faces a full-blown crisis over a contested judicial reform.

Thousands of Israelis took to the streets Saturday to protest the government's decision to forge ahead with its judicial reform package despite widespread opposition.

Bangladesh police fired rubber bullets and tear gas to disperse stone-throwing crowds blockading major roads in the capital Dhaka on Saturday in the latest protest demanding the prime minister's resignation.

The leader of Lebanon's powerful Hezbollah movement on Saturday stepped up his attacks against the region's long-marginalised LGBTQ community.

A Russian missile struck an apartment block in the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro on Friday, Kyiv officials said, injuring at least nine people including two children.

Australian police said Saturday that debris had been found from an Australian military helicopter that crashed into the Pacific Ocean, but there was still no sign of four missing crew members after a night and day's search.

Despite the military intervention in Ukraine and efforts by the West to paint Russia as a pariah state, Moscow can still count on support from several African, Latin American and Asian governments, including that of heavyweight China.

Most delegations were led by their environment and climate change ministers, while the US delegation was headed by Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry. Also at the talks is Emirati oil boss Sultan Al Jaber, who will lead the upcoming COP28 talks in the United Arab Emirates starting in late November.

France's President Emmanuel Macron stripped off his suit jacket Friday to wander the wild forests of Papua New Guinea on a green-tinted charm offensive in the South Pacific.