AFP news

The UK will back Ukraine's economy to the tune of $3 billion over the next three years while it fights back against Russian forces, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced on Tuesday.

Since the start of the year, Iran has intensified its diplomatic activity, engaging with friends and foes alike as it seeks to reduce its isolation, improve its economy and project strength. Iran's ultraconservative President Ebrahim Raisi has led the way, swinging through China, Syria and Venezuela, hosting Saudi Arabia's top diplomat, and reaching out to other long-time regional rivals such as Egypt.

A new, young generation of Moroccan filmmakers last month stepped into the limelight to make its debut at France's Cannes Film Festival -- snatching three prestigious awards.

US President Joe Biden equated his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping with "dictators" on Tuesday as he addressed a Democratic Party donors reception in the presence of journalists.

Asian markets mostly dipped Wednesday, following a downbeat lead from Wall Street as investors braced for Fed boss Jerome Powell's testimony to the US Congress.

Chinese imports of Russian oil last month hit their highest level since Moscow's February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Beijing's customs data showed Tuesday.

Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank killed five Palestinians including a militant on Monday, in a raid that saw seven Israeli security personnel wounded and rare helicopter fire.

The leaders of Palestinian militant groups Islamic Jihad and Hamas held talks Monday with top Iranian officials in Tehran as deadly violence flared in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

China's central bank on Tuesday cut two benchmark interest rates, following several similar measures in recent days in a bid to counter the post-Covid growth slowdown in the world's second-largest economy.

In the kitchen of his Kabul restaurant, one of the last cooks to master the Afghan culinary art of "chainaki" stuffs chunks of lamb and fat into about 200 tiny teapots to simmer for hours atop a clay stove.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi heads to the United States on Tuesday to meet with President Joe Biden and address Congress, with military and technological ties on the agenda as his hosts seek a regional counter to China.

The United States and China looked to set up a safety net for their intensifying rivalry during a visit to Beijing by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, but the trip achieved only general promises and no breakthroughs on hoped-for military talks and flashpoint issues.

The UN's top expert on rights in Afghanistan urged countries Monday to consider making "gender apartheid" an international crime, helping hold the Taliban accountable for its grave and systematic abuses against Afghan women.

Pakistan authorities arrested 10 alleged human traffickers on Sunday, days after hundreds of migrants were feared drowned off the Greek coast.

Iraq unveiled on Sunday a 2,800-year-old stone tablet returned by Italy, as the war-ravaged country works to recover from abroad antiquities looted from its territory.

Before 21-year-old Pakistani Muhammad Akash boarded a rickety fishing trawler in Libya on a journey he hoped would take him to a brighter future in Europe, he contacted his family one last time.

The world's first international treaty to protect the high seas is due to be adopted Monday at the United Nations, a historic environmental accord designed to protect remote ecosystems vital to mankind.

World leaders will gather in Paris this week with ambitions to reimagine global financing for a new era shaped by climate change, as a cascade of crises swamps debt-burdened countries.

International donors led by the EU on Thursday pledged 5.6 billion euros ($6.1 billion) for Syrian refugees, but Brussels stressed it will not ease its stance on President Bashar al-Assad's government.

Hosting his counterpart Ebrahim Raisi in Havana, President Miguel Diaz-Canel said both nations "have had to face heroically, with tenacious resistance, the sanctions, the pressures, the threats, the blockades and the indifference of US imperialism and its allies."

Under current policies, the planet will warm nearly twice that much by 2100, according to the UN's climate science advisory panel.

In Washington they paused; in Frankfurt they hiked; and in Beijing, they cut.

Nissan top executive Ashwani Gupta is leaving the company, the Japanese automaker said Friday, in a surprise departure that will revive concerns about the stability of the firm's leadership.

Hopes China will unveil fresh measures to kickstart its ailing economy lifted most markets Friday, while the dollar struggled to bounce from losses fuelled by bets the Federal Reserve is near the end of its tightening cycle.

French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday hosts Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for talks in Paris, seeking to nudge the de-facto leader of the oil-rich kingdom into more full-throated support of Ukraine against the Russian invasion.

The red eye that refuses to be extinguished, the metal body that cannot be crushed -- for many of us the word "robot" conjures one image: the Terminator.

Singapore will "progressively deploy" more patrol robots across the city-state, police said Thursday, after more than five years of small-scale trials.

Five months after India's top women wrestlers accused their politically powerful federation chief of sexual harassment and sparked a nationwide protest movement, police filed charges.

Howling gales and crashing waves pounded the coastline of India and Pakistan on Thursday hours before a powerful cyclone was due to make landfall, with those unable to flee seeking shelter where they could.