AFP news

The end of the widely hailed Olympic and Paralympic Games in Paris this weekend will be greeted with pride and relief, as well as trepidation in a country in the throes of a deep political crisis.

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.

When Pope Francis becomes the first pontiff to visit an independent East Timor, he will confront a clergy beset by child abuse scandals that have been largely ignored by the deeply Catholic country's freedom heroes.

A ceasefire agreement in Gaza, an anonymous US official told reporters, is 90 percent ready.

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.

On a hot summer day, contractors snake wiring through the basement of a townhouse in southeast Washington to install a heat pump, a key component of the United States' multi-billion dollar push towards greater home electrification.

Sentencing for Donald Trump in his New York hush money trial was delayed Friday until after November's election, a win for the Republican as he battles Democrat Kamala Harris in the knife-edge White House race.

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.

When Canadian writer Durga Chew-Bose was asked to pen a new film adaptation of Francoise Sagan's hit 1954 coming-of-age novel "Bonjour Tristesse," she jumped at the chance, even going beyond the page to offer costume and music advice.

The 2024 northern summer saw the highest global temperatures on record, beating 2023's high and making this year likely Earth's hottest ever recorded, the EU's climate monitor said Friday.

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.

The eurozone economy's growth in the second quarter this year was slightly smaller than previously estimated after the EU's statistics agency on Friday revised its data.

US tech titan Google employs "anti-competitive practices" with regards to online advertising, Britain's competition watchdog concluded Friday in provisional findings of a two-year long investigation.

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.

Movie critics and audiences don't always see eye-to-eye -- but rarely have they appeared as divided as they are over "Reagan," a highly flattering biopic of the Republican president released just months before another deeply polarized US election.

Taiwanese volunteers gathered around a large inflatable whale as they learned how to help beached sea mammals -- an increasingly common sight across the island.

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.

One of Colombia's biggest left-wing guerrilla groups says peace talks are "blocked" over the government's failure to cancel warrants for the arrest of its leaders.

Republican White House candidate Donald Trump unveiled a plan Thursday to install billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk at the head of a government efficiency commission to eliminate "trillions" of dollars in wasteful spending.

German police shot dead a man who opened fire on them near the Israeli consulate in Munich on Thursday in what they treated as a foiled "terrorist attack" on the diplomatic mission.

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.

The roots of war, its harrowing realities and aftermath are explored in a host of offerings at the Venice Film Festival this year, including a remarkable documentary going behind the lines with Russian soldiers.

A French woman whose husband has admitted to enlisting dozens of strangers to rape her while she was drugged told his trial on Thursday that police had saved her by uncovering the crimes.