WORLD

President Joe Biden said Thursday that US and British forces had launched air strikes against Iran-backed Huthi rebels in Yemen in "defensive action" after attacks on shipping in the Red Sea.

Greece will legalise marriage and adoption by same-sex couples, the prime minister said on Wednesday, but gave no timeframe on the sensitive issue in the staunchly Orthodox Christian state.

Polish President Andrzej Duda on Wednesday said he was shocked over the arrest of a former interior minister and his aide in a high-profile case that saw one of the detained men launch a hunger strike.

Papua New Guinea's prime minister declared a 14-day state of emergency in the capital on Thursday, after 15 people were killed in riots as crowds looted and burned shops.

The UK government on Thursday announced plans for what it said was the country's "biggest expansion of nuclear power for 70 years" to bolster its energy independence and meet carbon emission targets.

Israel bombarded the southern Gaza Strip Thursday as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken landed in Egypt on the final leg of regional talks aimed at preventing the Israel-Hamas war from spreading.

Two Russian missiles struck a hotel in Ukraine's second city Kharkiv, injuring 13 people including foreign journalists, local authorities said Thursday.

South Africa Thursday accused Israel of breaching the UN Genocide Convention, saying that even the deadly October 7 Hamas attack could not justify such alleged actions, as it opened a case at the top UN court.

The world added 50 percent more renewable energy capacity in 2023 over the previous year but more is needed in the battle against climate change, the International Energy Agency said Thursday.

A deafening explosion shakes the ground, sending lumps of dirt and smoke into the air, breaking the seeming tranquility of a cold January morning in the frozen fields of war-torn Ukraine's eastern Donbas region.

A senior Chinese official said Tuesday that Beijing did not seek to reshape the global order and sought greater US cooperation, in the latest departure from past hawkish rhetoric.

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was admitted to intensive care last week for complications from prostate cancer surgery, doctors said Tuesday, after he faced criticism for waiting days to inform the White House about his extended hospital stay.

A private US lunar lander mission is doomed to fail, and NASA pushes back plans to return astronauts to the Moon.

Already under the yoke of inflation and product scarcity, many Cubans don't know how they will cope with a new 500-percent surge in the fuel price.

Japan has tightened its air traffic control protocols after a fiery collision at Tokyo's main airport in which five people died but hundreds escaped to safety, the government said Wednesday.

North Korea's Kim Jong Un branded South Korea his country's "principal enemy" and warned he would not hesitate to annihilate it as he toured major weapons factories, state media said Wednesday.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was due to hold talks Wednesday with the head of the Palestinian Authority, which Washington hopes could govern Gaza after Israel's war with Hamas ends.

President Joe Biden was kept in the dark over his defense secretary's cancer diagnosis and subsequent hospitalizations for about a month, the White House admitted Tuesday, as details of Lloyd Austin's deeply unusual disappearance raised questions about leadership of the world's top military.

Since Sudan's war spread to Al-Jazira state south of Khartoum, farmers have watched their livelihoods wither away after fighting between paramilitary forces battling the army wreaked havoc on once-bountiful lands.

Ecuador declared a state of emergency Monday after a dangerous narco boss escaped from maximum security detention and unrest broke out at several prisons in the violence-plagued country.

A caravan in Mexico of at least 1,000 migrants resumed its march northward towards the US border on Monday, accusing Mexican authorities of failing to fulfill their promise of granting humanitarian visas.

The Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan began voting Tuesday in general elections with parties vowing to tackle serious economic challenges, calling into question its longstanding policy of prioritising "Gross National Happiness" over growth.

China's foreign minister said Tuesday that relations with the United States "stabilised" last year, as the two powers seek to put ties on a surer footing in 2024.

Top US diplomat Antony Blinken was set to meet Israeli leaders Tuesday as part of efforts to contain the war in Gaza, a day after strikes in Syria and Lebanon killed high-profile members of Hamas and its ally Hezbollah.

Taiwan issued a national emergency alert on Tuesday as China launched a satellite, days before the self-ruled island holds a crucial presidential election that has heightened security worries.

South Korea's parliament on Tuesday passed a bill banning breeding, slaughtering and selling dogs for their meat, a traditional practice that activists have called an embarrassment for the country.

US top diplomat Antony Blinken said there was "clear interest" in pursuing relations with Israel after talks in Saudi Arabia on Monday, the latest stop in a tour to calm a region inflamed by the Israel-Hamas war.

Al Jazeera said Sunday two of its Palestinian journalists in the Gaza Strip were killed in an Israeli strike on their car, in what the Qatar-based media network claimed was a "targeted killing".

Anders Behring Breivik, the right-wing extremist who killed 77 people in 2011 and is now "suicidal" according to his lawyer, appears in court Monday in his lawsuit against Norway over his prison conditions.