WORLD

Doubts were growing on Monday about a plan for a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal outlined by US President Joe Biden as heavy fighting raged for a third day since his White House address.

China on Monday accused Britain's Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) of recruiting a couple who worked for the central government to spy for the UK, adding to months of mutual espionage allegations between Beijing and Western powers.

Ignored by Russia and Israel, the International Court of Justice is hamstrung by a dysfunctional global system that sees countries comply with its rulings -- or not -- based on their own double standards, experts say.

Former US president and current White House hopeful Donald Trump has joined TikTok, posting his first video on the wildly popular social media app he once tried to ban while in office.

The Indian Ocean nation of the Maldives will ban Israelis from the luxury tourist hot spot, the office of the president said Sunday, announcing a national rally in "solidarity with Palestine".

Media magnate Rupert Murdoch has married for the fifth time at age 93, tying the knot with a retired molecular biologist a quarter century younger than him.

President Cyril Ramaphosa urged South African party leaders to work together in the public interest Sunday, after his ANC lost its 30-year-old governing majority in a bruising general election.

Donald Trump has suggested that sending him to prison could prove a "breaking point" for his supporters -- a warning that will fuel concerns of political violence around the US presidential election on November 5.

Taiwan's premier said Friday the controversial bills expanding parliament's powers will be sent back to the legislature, citing worries about their constitutionality after they drew thousands of protesters angered by government overreach.

An Indian court has urged the government to declare a national emergency over the country's ongoing heatwave, saying that hundreds of people had died during weeks of extreme weather.

The United States and Britain carried out air strikes on Yemen in what they said was a bid to degrade Iran-backed rebels' maritime attack capabilities, with Huthi media on Friday reporting 16 killed.

Israeli forces on Friday struck targets across the Gaza Strip, with witnesses reporting air raids around the southern city of Rafah, the latest focus of the nearly eight-month war.

NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg Friday downplayed Kremlin threats of escalation after President Joe Biden secretly lifted restrictions on Ukraine using US-supplied weapons against targets inside Russian territory, as five people were killed in an overnight strike on Kharkiv.

The United States and China will resume military-to-military communications "in the coming months", US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Friday, as Beijing hailed the "stabilising" security relations between the countries.

The James Webb Space Telescope has discovered what appears to be a new record-holder for the most distant known galaxy, a remarkably bright star system that existed just 290 million years after the Big Bang, NASA said Thursday.

Ordinary Haitians expressed hope Thursday that the country's new interim leader can bring much-needed change to the violence-wracked nation, though the challenges facing the former UN official are staggering.

Donald Trump on Thursday became the first former US president ever convicted of a crime after a New York jury found him guilty on all charges in his hush money case, months before an election that could see him yet return to the White House.

Humanity is in a race against time to harness the colossal emerging power of artificial intelligence for the good of all, while averting dire risks, a top UN official said Thursday.

Mexico's outgoing President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador is a veteran leftist and self-proclaimed anti-corruption fighter who remains widely popular after nearly six years in office.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and nearly two dozen Democrats called on the Justice Department Thursday to investigate the oil and gas industry over allegations of price-fixing.

NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg pushed at the start of a meeting of the alliance's foreign ministers on Thursday to let Ukraine use Western weapons to strike inside Russia, a move sought by Kyiv but opposed for now by its chief backer Washington.

Spain's parliament gave the final green light to a controversial amnesty bill for Catalan separatists Thursday, paving the way for the return of their figurehead Carles Puigdemont after years of self-imposed exile.

On the face of it, the villain from "Shrek", British singer turned TV presenter Cilla Black, and national service have nothing in common.

Rafah residents reported intense artillery shelling and gunfire Thursday in Gaza's far-southern city after Israel said it had seized a strategic corridor on the Palestinian territory's border with Egypt.

A Hong Kong court found 14 people guilty of subversion on Thursday in the biggest case against pro-democracy campaigners since China imposed a national security law to crush dissent.

At a Tehran cafe, Hamid waves his mobile around hoping to latch onto a faint signal and thus bypass Iran's stringent ban on the latest models of iPhone.

Almost every Indian meal requires an onion -- one of the cooking essentials along with sugar and lentils that sweet-talking politicians use to curry favour with their voters by lowering costs.

Chinese President Xi Jinping called on Thursday for a peace conference on the war between Israel and Hamas, as he addressed Arab leaders at a forum aimed at bolstering ties with the region.

The British parliament dissolved on Thursday ahead of a July 4 general election, which looks set to bring Labour to power after 14 years of Conservative rule.