POLITICS & POLICY

A wave of Ukrainian drone strikes on Russia overnight killed a woman near Moscow, Russian officials said on Tuesday, the first time someone has been killed in a Ukrainian attack near the capital since Russia's military offensive began in 2022.

Australia will ban children from using social media with a minimum age limit as high as 16, the prime minister said Tuesday, vowing to get kids off their devices and "onto the footy fields".

Russian and Chinese warships began joint drills in the Sea of Japan on Tuesday, part of a major naval exercise that will see Moscow sail through waters spanning the Northern Hemisphere and Pacific.

Gaza's civil defence agency said an Israeli strike Tuesday on a humanitarian zone in the Palestinian territory killed 40 people, with the Israeli army saying it had targeted a Hamas command centre in the area.

Pope Francis celebrated a mass for hundreds of thousands of faithful in East Timor on Tuesday, rallying nearly half the population of the world's most Catholic country outside the Vatican in stifling tropical heat.

After South Korean authorities uncovered a sprawling network of AI deepfake porn Telegram chatrooms targeting schools and universities, teenage activist Bang Seo-yoon began collecting testimony of abuse from victims.

Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado vowed Monday to remain in Venezuela, a day after her colleague and presidential candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia took up asylum in Spain claiming post-election repression.

Catherine, Princess of Wales announced Monday that she was cancer-free but on a long road to "full recovery", in a highly emotional video message following a shock cancer diagnosis earlier this year.

A leading opponent of Vladimir Putin, freed in a prisoner swap last month, on Monday urged the West against allowing the Russian leader any "face-saving" way out of the war against Ukraine, saying the end of his quarter-century of rule was the only solution for peace.

The University of Sydney and University of Melbourne will have to slash their intake by 7%, limiting the students to 11,900 and 9,300, respectively. Overseas students account for more than 40% in both the universities.

Pope Francis arrived to a rock star welcome Monday in East Timor, where he will rally the Catholic-majority nation's faithful with a huge mass expected to attract more than half the country's 1.3 million population.

Venezuela's battered opposition is running out of options for challenging President Nicolas Maduro's claim to have won reelection.

When he was a witch doctor, Moussa Diallo would regularly smear himself in a lotion made from a clitoris cut from a girl subjected to female genital mutilation.

Catholic devotees were clamouring to see Pope Francis before his arrival in East Timor's capital on Monday -- making pilgrimages from faraway towns and hours-long crossings of its shared border with Indonesia.

Amina Sohail veers through heavy traffic to pick up her next passenger -- the sight of a woman riding a motorcycle drawing stares in Pakistan's megacity of Karachi.

Spain's Pedro Almodovar won Venice's Golden Lion award Saturday for his pro-euthanasia film "The Room Next Door", with the acting prizes going to Nicole Kidman and Frenchman Vincent Lindon.

The war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza entered its 12 month Saturday with little sign of respite for the Palestinian territory or hope for Israeli hostages still held captive.

Kenyan police stepped up their investigations Saturday into a prime school dormitory blaze that has now cost the lives of 18 boys, as families faced an agonising wait for news of their missing loved ones.

A Turkish-American woman was shot dead Friday while demonstrating against Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank town of Beita, where the army acknowledged opening fire.

France's new right-wing Prime Minister Michel Barnier started consulting all sides Friday to cobble together a government capable of mustering a majority in parliament after two months of political deadlock.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese distanced himself from Swan's comments in the media, saying that both RBA and his government worked to lower inflation. "They are in charge of monetary policy, we are in charge of fiscal policy ... The fight against inflation is one we are all engaged with," he said.

The move follows similar cases in Western Australia and Queensland, where cases were settled for AU$165 million and AU$190 million, respectively.

Israeli forces appeared to be winding down a deadly 10-day raid in a flashpoint city in the occupied West Bank on Friday, as key ally Germany warned against treating the territory like Gaza.

President Volodymyr Zelensky joined a meeting of Ukraine's international backers in Germany on Friday, appealing for additional weapons as Kyiv faces advancing Russian forces in the east and devastating strikes by Moscow.

Over mountains, by air, and by sea, pilgrims have flocked to Port Moresby, the Papua New Guinea capital where Pope Francis landed on Friday on a landmark four-day visit.

China's years of splashing cash on big-ticket infrastructure projects in Africa may be over, analysts say, with Beijing seeking to shield itself from risky, indebted partners on the continent as it grapples with a slowing economy at home.

France's Top 14, with its seemingly bottomless resources, has always attracted the finest cuts of world rugby talent but the arrival of Owen Farrell, the epitome of English 'rosbif', at Racing 92 comes across as more substantial than most.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on a rare visit to violence-ravaged Haiti on Thursday heard guarded optimism as he promised $45 million in aid, urged greater international support for a new security mission and sought concrete action toward elections.

French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday named the European Union's former Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier as new prime minister, counting on the veteran politician to end two months of political deadlock after snap elections.