AFP news

The world's biggest rice exporter India has banned some overseas sales of the grain "with immediate effect", the government said, in a move that could drive international prices even higher.

Australia coach Tony Gustavsson has defended keeping Sam Kerr's Women's World Cup injury secret, saying he did so for tactical reasons and to protect his star player.

Asian equities wobbled again Friday at the end of a draining week as fresh US jobs data put revived bets on two more Federal Reserve interest rate hikes, adding to ongoing worries about China's economy.

Tall, chimney-like towers rise from centuries-old adobe houses in Iran's desert city of Yazd, drawing in a pleasant breeze for residents of one of the hottest cities on earth.

Turkey's central bank hiked its main interest rate for the second month in a row on Thursday but analysts said the unwinding of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's unconventional policy was too timid to tame inflation.

The Russian high-explosive bombs started falling around the frontline Ukrainian chemical plant about three months ago.

Smoke was rising from the blackened ruins of a residential building in Mykolaiv on Thursday after a Russian missile hit the centre of the southern Ukrainian city, killing at least two and injuring 19 including several children.

The world has been buffeted by fires, dire health warnings and broken temperature records in the past week.

A scan revealed that Samantha Casiano's unborn child had serious health defects and would not survive outside the womb for more than a few hours.

Google is working with news publishers to design a new AI-backed tool to help journalists report and write their stories, the company said on Thursday.

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday he is still "open for negotiations" on a key clause of his hard-right government's controversial judicial reforms, as protests intensified ahead of final votes on the bill.

July 2023 will probably be the world's hottest month in "hundreds, if not thousands, of years," top NASA climatologist Gavin Schmidt said Thursday.

Russian President Vladimir Putin decided against attending an upcoming BRICS summit in Johannesburg in person because he did not want to "jeopardise" the talks, a top South African diplomat said Thursday.

Vitaliy Bylenko looked ruefully at the mountains of grain in his barn, contemplating the growing obstacles to shifting the stockpiles after Russia this week exited a deal allowing Black Sea exports.

AI will be the "defining mega-trend" for the global computing industry, the head of chip giant AMD said Thursday in Taiwan, where the majority of the world's semiconductors powering the technology is produced.

Markets mostly rose Thursday on signs that more than a year of interest rate hikes around the world was subduing inflation, giving central banks room to take a softer approach to monetary policy.

Russia said Wednesday it would consider cargo ships travelling to Ukraine through the Black Sea potential military targets, following its decision to exit a landmark deal that permitted the export of grain from Ukraine.

The extreme heat in the northern hemisphere is putting an increasing strain on healthcare systems, hitting those least able to cope the hardest, the World Health Organization said Wednesday.

Goldman Sachs reported a dive in profits Wednesday on weak merger and acquisition activity, but shares rallied as executives said an improvement could be near.

Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi granted a pardon Wednesday to researcher Patrick Zaki, state media said, a day after Zaki's three-year jail term sparked an outcry from local rights groups and Western governments.

Hundreds of Israeli activists marched from Tel Aviv towards Jerusalem on Wednesday to protest against the hard-right government's planned judicial overhaul, which they fear threatens liberal democracy.

The United States on Wednesday announced a new $1.3 billion military aid package for Ukraine featuring air defense systems, anti-tank missiles, drones and other equipment.

Ukraine expects its fight to regain land lost to the Russian invasion to be long and grinding, a senior presidential aide in Kyiv told AFP Wednesday.

The story of the invention of the atomic bomb told in the new film "Oppenheimer" is a "warning" to the world as we grapple with artificial intelligence, insists the movie's director Christopher Nolan.

Protesters set fire to Sweden's embassy in the Iraqi capital Baghdad early Thursday, an AFP journalist said, ahead of a planned burning of a Koran in Sweden.

Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan ended a Gulf trip aimed at securing investments by signing agreements worth more than $50 billion in the United Arab Emirates, Emirati state media said Wednesday.

Goldman Sachs reported a steep drop in second-quarter profits Wednesday as it continued to struggle with an anemic merger and acquisition market and weakness in trading.

Russian President Vladimir Putin will not attend a BRICS nations summit in South Africa next month, the country's presidency said on Wednesday, ending months of speculation.

Security officials shot in the air and used firehoses Wednesday to disperse dozens of Afghan women protesting against an order by Taliban authorities to shut down beauty parlours, the latest curb to squeeze them out of public life.