AFP news

Joe Biden on Sunday dropped out of the US presidential election and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic Party's new nominee, in a stunning move that upends the 2024 race for the White House.

For years Kamala Harris faced criticism that she was not up to the job of being a heartbeat away from the presidency.

Joe Biden's withdrawal upends what was already a White House race for the ages, but it will rattle Donald Trump, too -- forcing him to recalibrate a campaign that was focused almost entirely on his former opponent.

Joe Biden wanted to save the "soul of America" from Donald Trump, but his stubborn defiance of the march of time may have cleared his rival's path back to power.

Yemen's Huthi rebels on Sunday promised a "huge" retaliation against Israel following a deadly strike on the port of Hodeida, as regional fallout widens from months of war in Gaza.

Paris Olympics supremo Tony Estanguet said Sunday that the city was "ready" for the Games as he played down complaints from some residents and businesses about the impact of the event.

Bangladesh's top court on Sunday pared back, but fell short of public demands to abolish, contentious civil service hiring rules that sparked nationwide clashes between police and university students that have killed 151 people.

One night in September 2020, Hanna Kanavalava fled her native Belarus and crossed the border into Ukraine -- on foot, in the dark and with her two young grandchildren in tow.

After a long estrangement, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Syrian counterpart Bashar al-Assad may be edging towards a meeting, but analysts say normalisation will likely be gradual due to thorny issues.

Amor Nouira, a farmer in Tunisia's Chebika village, has lost hope of saving his prickly pear cacti, ravaged by the cochineal insect spreading across North Africa.

Donald Trump commanded the stage for nearly two hours Saturday in his first rally since a gunman tried to kill him last week, with a fiery, rambling speech to thousands of passionate supporters.

A putrid smell hangs over the black-stained shores of Lake Maracaibo in Venezuela, where an oil slick is emblematic of the steep decline in the country's once-enviable petroleum industry.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is to deliver a landmark speech to the US Congress on Wednesday as he fights off intense pressure to quickly cut a Gaza war ceasefire deal with Hamas.

Israeli warplanes struck the Huthi-controlled Yemeni port of Hodeida Saturday, a day after a drone attack by the Iran-backed rebels killed a civilian in Tel Aviv, both sides said.

Donald Trump is set to hold a triumphant first campaign rally Saturday since surviving an assassination attempt, in startling contrast to President Joe Biden, who remains hunkered at home with Covid, resisting unprecedented Democratic pressure to step aside.

Fresh tears flowed in Cyprus Saturday for loved ones killed 50 years ago when Turkish troops landed on the Mediterranean island in an invasion that has left it divided and scarred to this day.

Soldiers were patrolling Bangladeshi cities on Saturday to quell growing civil unrest sparked by student demonstrations, with riot police firing on protesters who defied a government curfew.

Airlines, banks, TV channels and financial institutions were thrown into turmoil on Friday by one of the biggest IT crashes in recent years, caused by an update to an antivirus program.

The UN's top court, in a sweeping opinion on Friday, said that Israel's decades-long occupation of Palestinian territory was "illegal" and needed to end as soon as possible.

Everton's potential sale to the Friedkin Group will not go ahead after the Premier League club failed to reach an agreement with the American investors.

Paris shops, restaurants, bars and clubs are facing an "unprecedented slump in business and footfall", trade groups said Friday, blaming in part the "heavy security measures" imposed ahead of the Olympic Games starting July 26.

The amount of electricity produced from renewable sources worldwide is set to surpass output from coal-fired plants for the first time in 2025, the International Energy Agency said Friday.

Adidas said Friday it had dropped vocal pro-Palestinian model Bella Hadid from an advertising campaign for retro sneakers referencing the 1972 Munich Olympics, which were overshadowed by a massacre of Israeli athletes.

Azerbaijan said Friday it hopes to raise money from fossil fuel producers for green projects in developing countries as the petro-state prepares to host the world's most important climate summit.

US President Joe Biden doubled down on his insistence that he will stay in the White House race, despite a growing Democrat revolt that raised speculation he could bow out as soon as this weekend.

Iran is capable of producing fissile material for use in a nuclear weapon within "one or two weeks," US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Friday.

Catastrophic computer outages caused by a software update from one company have once again exposed the dangers of global technological dependence on a handful of players, experts warned on Friday.

Bangladeshi student protesters stormed a prison and freed hundreds of inmates Friday as police struggled to quell unrest, with huge rallies in the capital Dhaka despite a police ban on public gatherings.

US reporter Evan Gershkovich was sentenced by a Russian court on Friday to 16 years prison for "espionage", a verdict slammed as "despicable", "disgraceful" and a "sham" by Western governments and his employer.