WORLD

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday confirmed a major policy reversal by backing his new economic team's decision to drastically hike interest rates to fight runaway inflation.

United States-backed Kurdish-led fighters in northern Syria on Wednesday fought a deadly battle with Turkish-supported forces who said they intervened after clashes killed dozens in an Arab-majority province further east.

The European Union's enlargement commissioner told Turkey on Wednesday to address issues around democracy and the rule of law if it wants to boost its drive to join the bloc.

Storms that unleashed torrential flooding in Greece, Turkey and Bulgaria have killed at least 11 people, authorities said Wednesday, as extreme heat gave way to heavy rain.

Rustem Umerov, confirmed by parliament as Ukraine's new defence minister Wednesday, is known as a skilful and pragmatic negotiator with excellent connections in the Muslim world.

Climate change is driving more intense and more frequent heatwaves, which in turn generate a "witch's brew" of pollutants, threatening the health of humans and all living things, the UN warned Wednesday.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Kyiv Wednesday after another night of Russian strikes on Ukraine, with Washington set to unveil more than $1 billion in fresh aid to battle Russia.

Landmark African climate talks are set to wrap up Wednesday with leaders seeking a united voice to highlight the continent's potential as a green powerhouse, provided the world steps up funding and eases debt.

2023 is likely to be the hottest year in human history, and global temperatures during the Northern Hemisphere summer were the warmest on record, the EU climate monitor said on Wednesday.

"This initiative builds on the UAE's track record of commercially driven, innovative blended finance solutions that can be deployed to promote the adoption of clean energy in emerging and developing nations," COP28 President-Designate, Sultan bin Ahmed Al Jaber said.

Most Asian markets fell Wednesday as a jump in oil prices to 10-month highs rekindled worries of another US Federal Reserve interest rate hike.

US President Joe Biden heads to India for the G20 summit this weekend aiming to capitalise on the glaring absence of China's and Russia's leaders to bolster alliances in the sharply divided bloc.

Southeast Asian leaders meet with top US, Chinese and Japanese officials at a series of summits in Indonesia on Wednesday, where big power rivalries and regional issues from the South China Sea to North Korean missiles will be on the table.

With no cell service or phone calls, people in Sudan's war-ravaged western region of Darfur are resorting to a bygone means of communication: handwritten letters, carried by taxi drivers.

On a tiny Caribbean island, hundreds of people are preparing to pack up and move to escape the rising waters threatening to engulf their already precarious homes.

Some six billion tonnes of sand and other sediment is extracted from the world's seas and oceans every year, the UN said Tuesday, warning of the devastating toll on biodiversity and coastal communities.

Elon Musk, the owner of social media platform X, formerly Twitter, said he is considering suing a leading anti-defamation group, arguing that its accusations of anti-Semitism have led the company to lose revenue.

French schools sent dozens of girls home for refusing to remove their abayas -- an over-garment from the shoulders to the feet worn by Muslim women -- on the first day of the school year, a government minister said Tuesday.

Fifty-three members of the security forces have been killed in an attack by suspected jihadists in northern Burkina Faso, the army said on Tuesday.

At a dusty construction site on the bank of the Dnipro river in Kyiv, workers busily prepared the heating system for the upcoming winter while it was still warm.

A Swedish oil company allegedly knew that Sudanese armed forces would use violence to secure areas in which it wanted to operate, prosecutors said Tuesday as two former executives faced war crimes charges.

Gabon's new strongman on Tuesday met central Africa's mediator for the country and started to amnesty dissidents following a coup last week that brought the curtain down on the 55-year Bongo dynasty.

UN chief Antonio Guterres joined African leaders on Tuesday in demanding urgent reforms to the "outdated and unfair" global financial system, speaking at a landmark climate summit in Kenya aimed at showcasing the continent's green potential.

Saudi Arabia and Russia said on Tuesday they would extend voluntary oil cuts until the end of the year, sending the price of Brent crude to a 10-month high.

The UK's second biggest city on Tuesday admitted that it cannot balance its books, blaming Conservative governments for years of under-funding.

Over 900 people were killed or injured by cluster munitions in Ukraine last year amid broad Russian use of the widely-banned weapons, propelling global casualty figures to record levels, a report showed Tuesday.

Southeast Asian leaders met in Indonesia on Tuesday to seek a united voice on the years-long Myanmar crisis as the Philippines said it was ready to replace the country's junta rulers as chair of the bloc in 2026.

The UAE pledged $4.5 billion in clean energy investments in Africa on Tuesday at a landmark climate summit aimed to showcase the continent's potential as a green powerhouse.

The risk of bombing has made it virtually impossible to insure ships leaving Ukraine via the Black Sea, leaving the sector to find an alternative route, especially for grain.