WORLD

Devout Filipinos clutching candles and flowers poured into cemeteries across the heavily Catholic Philippines on Friday to pay tribute to loved ones on All Saints' Day.

One year after world leaders issued the landmark call for a global move away from fossil fuels, nations are failing to turn that promise into action, say climate diplomats, campaigners and policy experts.

"I'm holding an illustrated book of cheeses," says a delighted Tomoyo Ozumi, a customer at a growing kind of bookshop in Japan where anyone wanting to sell their tomes can rent a shelf.

New York's Halloween parade brought out the ghouls and ghosts of the Big Apple on Thursday, with a subversive political theme on show in many costumes days before America picks its next president.

North Korea's latest weapons test "perfected" its newest and most advanced solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile, state media said Friday, as global criticism mounts over Pyongyang's purported deployment of troops to Russia.

Dozens of Facebook groups bill themselves as Kamala Harris fan pages but mount racist attacks, criticize her record on immigration and promote her rival Donald Trump, in what disinformation researchers call a "bait-and-switch" tactic aimed at deceiving voters in a tight US election race.

Workers cleared fallen trees and shop owners swept up debris in Taiwan on Friday after one of the biggest typhoons to hit the island in decades claimed at least two lives.

Divers plunged into the river while high-mountain police hot-footed through the rubble in a rush to find five residents of the hamlet of Letur missing after Spain's apocalyptic floods.

Turkish opposition parties protested Thursday against what they said was the politically-motivated arrest of an opposition mayor for alleged links to the banned Kurdish PKK militant group.

Two ex-police officers went on trial in Brazil on Wednesday over the 2018 assassination of charismatic black LGBT activist Marielle Franco, a Rio de Janeiro councilor who was gunned down in an attack that shocked the country.

Flags flew at half-mast on government buildings throughout the country after a Mediterranean storm unleashed torrential rains and torrents of mud-filled water that swept away people, cars and homes.

Seoul had warned a day earlier that the nuclear-armed North was preparing to test-fire another intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) or even conduct a nuclear test ahead of next week's US elections.

Packing maximum wind speeds of 184 kilometers per hour (114 miles per hour), Kong-rey slammed into eastern Taiwan on Thursday afternoon, the Central Weather Administration said.

Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba's coalition lost its majority in Sunday's snap vote, likely forcing him to head a minority government with support from other parties to pass legislation.

Before the strike on his neighbourhood in eastern Ukraine, Volodymyr had planned to brave what promises to be the worst winter of the war yet with just a heavy blanket and two electric heaters.

Donald Trump and Kamala Harris launch a frantic tour of swing states Wednesday in the final week of the campaign for the US presidency, a day after the vice president told a huge crowd outside the White House that her rival was unstable and itching for unbridled power.

More than a year into the Gaza war, the Israeli army's reservists are exhausted and it is struggling to recruit soldiers just as it opens a new front in Lebanon.

The US economy is set to report another quarter of solid growth Wednesday, less than a week before the presidential election, but analysts say it remains unclear if positive data can sway inflation-weary voters.

Britain's new Labour government unveils its first budget on Wednesday, with Prime Minister Keir Starmer warning of tax rises and public spending cuts as he focuses on long-term growth.

US President Joe Biden on Tuesday unveiled a $3 billion investment towards port infrastructure in Maryland -- and took a swipe at Republican White House candidate Donald Trump a week before Election Day.

A global police operation shut down the servers of one of the world's largest malware platforms that targeted millions of victims, the EU's judicial arm said on Tuesday.

Indonesia's President Prabowo Subianto will set off on his first foreign tour next month, with stops in China and the United States, local media reported Tuesday, as the new leader seeks a more prominent position for Jakarta on the world stage.

Lebanon's Hezbollah movement announced Tuesday it has chosen deputy head Naim Qassem to succeed Hasan Nasrallah as leader after his death in an Israeli strike on south Beirut last month.

Kamala Harris will urge Americans to turn the page on Donald Trump as she delivers her closing election argument Tuesday on the spot where her rival rallied supporters before the January 6, 2021 US Capitol attack.

The Vatican on Tuesday publishes its first annual report on protecting minors in the Catholic Church, a move requested by Pope Francis amid pressure for more action to tackle clerical child sex abuse.

While US arms sales to Taiwan will likely continue whoever wins the presidential election, analysts say there are concerns in Taipei over a re-elected Donald Trump's willingness to defend the island against China.

Philadelphia's chief prosecutor sued billionaire Elon Musk and his pro-Donald Trump political action committee on Monday to halt his $1 million giveaways to registered US voters in swing states.

Every rainy season for the past 12 years, floods have swept through 67-year-old Idris Egbunu's house in central Nigeria.

Georgia braced for protests on Monday, after the pro-EU opposition called for mass demonstrations, accusing the ruling party of "stealing" this weekend's parliamentary election in what the Caucasus country's president called a "Russian special operation."