AFP news

Argentine President Javier Milei heads for the United States Monday for the fourth time since taking office in December, meeting tech giants as he seeks to "reposition" his economically troubled country, the government said.

North Korea's latest attempt to put a spy satellite into orbit ended in a mid-air explosion, Pyongyang said late Monday, hours after its announcement of a planned launch was criticised by Seoul and Tokyo.

OpenAI was forced to apologise to actor Scarlett Johansson last week for using her voice -- or something very similar -- on its latest chatbot, throwing the spotlight on to voice-cloning tech.

Donald Trump appealed for support from the fringe Libertarian Party on Saturday, telling a rowdy crowd that if elected he would free from prison an American man who ran a website that sold millions of dollars in drugs.

Sean Baker, who won the Cannes Film Festival's top prize on Saturday, has spent a career chronicling the lives of sex workers and porn stars.

Gaza's civil defence agency said Monday that the death toll had risen to 40 from overnight Israeli strikes that set ablaze tents of displaced Palestinians in Rafah, an attack that sparked condemnation across the Arab world.

A senior US lawmaker affirmed on Monday Washington's support for Taiwan against Chinese "aggression", on the first congressional visit to the self-ruled island since it swore in a new president.

Indian police said Monday they had arrested a doctor and the owner of an unlicensed hospital where six newborn babies died in a fire in a crowded ward without fire exits.

Mexico is on course to elect its first woman president this weekend, with two front-runners competing to break the highest political glass ceiling in a country with a history of gender violence and inequality.

A cutting-edge facility featuring artificial intelligence (AI) -- Easyjet's new control centre is tasked with handling about 2,000 mostly-European flights per day as the British airline eyes high summer demand.

Residents of low-lying areas of Bangladesh and India surveyed the damage Monday as a cyclone that lashed the coast weakened into a heavy storm after killing at least 10 people and destroying thousands of homes.

Extremely vulnerable to climate change, not rich enough to stop it on their own, and not poor enough to depend on aid and development financing: the world's small island countries are bracing for both fiscal and climate shocks.

Cricket's ability to grow its global presence beyond its heartlands, while still maintaining the quality at the highest level, will be tested over the coming month in the T20 World Cup in the Caribbean and the United States.

China's Premier Li Qiang said his country will always be open to foreign companies and promised steps to boost their confidence in the world's second-largest economy, state media reported.

Leaders from South Korea, China and Japan reaffirmed their goal of a denuclearised Korean peninsula Monday, during a rare summit at which they also agreed to deepen trade ties.

Asian and European stock markets rose Monday in holiday-thinned trading, with investors awaiting fresh US and European inflation data for more clarity on the outlook for interest rates.

More than 2,000 people are feared buried in a Papua New Guinea landslide that destroyed a remote highland village, the government said Monday, as it pleaded for international help in the rescue effort.

Paris Saint-Germain and Lyon echoed French President Emmanuel Macron by condemning Sunday the violence that broke out between rival football fans heading to Saturday's French Cup final that left 38 people hurt and a bus burnt to a crisp.

Naomi Osaka swept to her first victory at the French Open in three years on Sunday, setting up a potential showdown with Iga Swiatek, as Carlos Alcaraz maintained his record of never losing in the first round of a Grand Slam.

South Africa's opposition parties mounted an 11th-hour assault Sunday on the ruling ANC's 30-year-old grip on power, staging large-scale rallies three days before what promises to be a historic general election.

The French civil aviation authority said Friday it had ordered airlines operating at Paris Orly airport to cancel 70 percent of flights ahead of a weekend air traffic controller strike.

A massive landslide struck six villages in Papua New Guinea's highlands Friday, local officials said, with many homes believed to be buried and scores of villagers feared dead.

A fire ripped through an apartment complex in central Hanoi early Friday, killing 14 people and injuring three others, police said.

Ukrainian opera singer Yurii Ivaskevych traded his tuxedo for military fatigues to fight the Russian invasion.

Kylian Mbappe will bring the curtain down on his Paris Saint-Germain career on Saturday and has the chance to sign off with another trophy in the French Cup final against Lyon.

Markets fell in Asia and Europe on Friday, tracking a sell-off on Wall Street sparked by a string of better-than-expected US data that added to worries the Federal Reserve will hold off on cutting interest rates this year.

Propagandists and scammers are exploiting xenophobia and anger over failing infrastructure to unleash a wave of disinformation ahead of South Africa's most contested polls since 1994, experts warn.

Israeli forces carried out strikes on Gaza and battled militants on the ground Friday, as the UN's top court was due to rule on a plea to halt the military offensive.

Russian forces have become "bogged down" trying to capture the northeastern border town of Vovchansk, but were putting intense pressure on Ukraine's army in the east, Kyiv's top general said Friday.