AFP news

The Panama Canal Authority (ACP) said Wednesday that the famed waterway continues to face a water shortage, despite recent rains alleviating most restrictions imposed following last year's drought.

North Korea successfully tested its multiple-warhead missile capability, state media said Thursday, as dozens more trash-laden balloons sent by Pyongyang landed in the South.

Two Bolivian army leaders have been arrested after soldiers and tanks took up position in front of government buildings on Wednesday in what President Luis Arce called an attempted coup.

The two men bidding to be British prime minister faced off late on Wednesday in a bad-tempered, last head-to-head TV debate before the country's general election next week.

Belgium, Romania and Slovakia qualified for the last 16 of Euro 2024 on Wednesday as war-torn Ukraine were left heartbroken by a thrilling end to Group E. Romania's 1-1 draw with Slovakia in Frankfurt secured the point both nations needed to progress, while Ukraine's brave effort in a 0-0 draw with Belgium was not enough.

A court in New York on Wednesday sentenced former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernandez to 45 years in prison after he was convicted of trafficking hundreds of tons of cocaine into the United States.

The US Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected a Republican-led bid to curb government contact with social media companies to moderate their content, a ruling that could bolster official efforts to fight misinformation in a key election year.

Amazon's AWS, the world's biggest cloud computing outfit, is making a major push to entice the public sector to join the artificial intelligence revolution, as the generative AI race with Microsoft and Google heats up.

At its plane factory near Seattle, Boeing has increased employee training, appointed mentors for new recruits, brought back retirees as coaches and stepped up tracking of performance metrics.

Fully autonomous cars are still years away from hitting the streets, but internationally-agreed rules on their use could be ready by mid-2026, the United Nations has said.

Compared to others in war-scarred east Ukraine, Galyna Poroshyna had been lucky to live in Toretsk, a mining town nestled in a relatively sleepy sector of the front line.

Women candidates are pushing for greater representation in Mongolia's male-dominated politics, raising their voices for change and inspiring girls to follow in their footsteps.

South Africa demolished Afghanistan's T20 World Cup dream in ruthless fashion on Wednesday, thrashing the minnows by nine wickets with more than 11 overs to spare to reach the final of the cricket showpiece for the first time.

On Everest's sacred slopes, climate change is thinning snow and ice, increasingly exposing the bodies of hundreds of mountaineers who died chasing their dream to summit the world's highest mountain.

The yen edged back slightly Thursday after hitting a 38-year low against the dollar, putting investors on alert for a possible intervention by Japanese authorities, while investors awaited US inflation data that could spark another round of volatility.

Lines on a map once meant little to India's Tibetan herders of the high Himalayas, expertly guiding their goats through even the harshest winters to pastures on age-old seasonal routes.

Adidas said Wednesday two employees had left the company as the German sportswear giant investigates bribery allegations in China.

Fighting raged Wednesday between Israeli troops and Palestinian militants in Gaza's southern city of Rafah, witnesses said, as fears grow of a wider regional war drawing in Lebanese Hamas ally Hezbollah.

NATO's 32 nations on Wednesday appointed outgoing Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte as the alliance's next head, handing him the job at a crucial moment with Russia on the march in Ukraine and US elections looming.

South African scientists on Tuesday injected radioactive material into live rhino horns to make them easier to detect at border posts in a pioneering project aimed at curbing poaching.

Tom Maiani was behind the wheel of his car every night, all night, for two weeks in July 2023, as youths in French housing estates rioted over the police killing of an unarmed teenager of North African descent near Paris.

Iranians vote on Friday to elect a new president from six candidates, including a lone reformist who hopes he can challenge the dominance of conservatives in the Islamic republic.

Kenyan protest organisers called Wednesday for fresh peaceful marches against controversial tax hikes, as the death toll from nationwide demonstrations climbed to 13, an official from the leading doctors' association told AFP. The mainly youth-led rallies began mostly peacefully last week, with thousands of people marching across the country against the tax increases, but tensions sharply escalated Tuesday, as police opened fire on demonstrators who stormed parliament.

North Korea test-fired what appeared to be a hypersonic missile on Wednesday, but the launch ended in a mid-air explosion, an official from Seoul's Joint Chiefs of Staff said.

Britain will see little difference on public spending whichever of the country's main parties wins next month's general election, with state coffers strained largely by huge Covid expenditure.

Austria's highly controversial former foreign minister Karin Kneissl -- who now lives in Russia -- told AFP she feels slandered as Vienna reels from an unfolding Russian spying scandal.

Germany's Euro 2024 base camp, located in the Bavarian village headquarters of kit manufacturer Adidas, was designed to 'awaken the spirit' of their last great triumph -- the 2014 World Cup.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange returned home to Australia to start life as a free man Wednesday after admitting he revealed US defense secrets in a deal that unlocked the door to his London prison cell.

After more than thirteen years in England, including five years spent in prison, Julian Assange pleaded guilty in the Northern Mariana Islands, a far-flung US territory in the Pacific, and walked out of court a free man.