AFP news

The United States stepped up pressure Monday for a Gaza ceasefire with a call for a UN Security Council vote on a truce as it redeployed Washington's top diplomat to the region scarred by eight months of war.

French President Emmanuel Macron has taken the biggest gamble of his political career by calling early legislative elections to combat the surge of the far right, with the outcome decisive for his political legacy.

Hardly a third of Bulgarians voted in the Balkan EU member's sixth parliamentary elections in three years on Sunday, with the party of conservative former premier Boyko Borisov coming in first, but more political uncertainty looming.

Benny Gantz, who quit Israel's war cabinet Sunday, is a centrist politician with dreams of toppling Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government.

Carlos Alcaraz fought back to defeat Alexander Zverev in a five-set French Open final on Sunday and become the youngest man to win Grand Slam titles on all three surfaces.

South Korea on Sunday resumed a loudspeaker propaganda campaign against the North, as Pyongyang sent a fresh barrage of trash-filled balloons across the border and vowed a "new response."

India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi was sworn in on Sunday for a third term after worse-than-expected election results left him reliant on coalition partners to govern.

Voters across Europe cast ballots Sunday on the final -- and biggest -- day of elections for the EU's parliament, with far-right parties expected to make gains at a pivotal time for the bloc.

Israelis on Sunday cheered the rescue of four hostages from war-torn Gaza while Palestinians counted the cost, with Hamas officials saying 274 people were killed and hundreds wounded during the daytime raid.

Once shunned and now eagerly courted by the West, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has steered his country away from its secular traditions and towards the Hindu-first politics he has championed for decades.

The final -- and by far biggest -- day of EU elections takes place Sunday with voting in 21 member countries, including France and Germany, where support for surging far-right parties is being tested.

Humanitarian aid began trickling back into the devastated Gaza Strip on Saturday via a rebuilt, temporary pier, US forces said.

It might have been the longest wait but on Saturday 100-year-old American World War II veteran Harold Terens married his 96-year-old fiancee in Normandy, just days after being honoured on the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings in northwestern France.

Israel pressed its bombardment of Gaza on Saturday as a war cabinet minister looked set to carry through on his threat to quit a government under mounting pressure over its conduct of the military campaign.

At the cultural crossroads of the world, New Yorkers will experience a thrilling first on Sunday -- a World Cup cricket match hosted in a US city between Asian powerhouses: rivals India and Pakistan.

A landslide election win will embolden Claudia Sheinbaum, Mexico's first woman president, to defend her country's interests in sometimes-tense relations with the United States dominated by trade, migration and drugs, experts say.

Slovakia on Saturday kicks off the final two days of voting in EU-wide elections, under the shadow of last month's shooting of Prime Minister Robert Fico.

A Moscow court on Friday ordered a French citizen accused of gathering Russian military information to be held in pre-trial detention, in the latest case of a Western citizen being detained in Russia.

The incoming president of the COP29 UN climate summit in Azerbaijan told AFP on Friday that his country would keep increasing fossil fuel production "in parallel" with investments in cleaner alternatives.

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak apologised on Friday for leaving the D-Day commemorations in France early to give a domestic television interview, the latest self-inflicted setback to his stuttering general election campaign.

Carlos Alcaraz outlasted Jannik Sinner in an engrossing five-set battle on Friday to reach his first French Open final, where he will face either Alexander Zverev or Casper Ruud.

France will transfer Mirage-2000 fighter jets to Ukraine and train their Ukrainian pilots as part of a new military cooperation with Kyiv as it fights the Russian invasion, President Emmanuel Macron announced on Thursday.

A British woman who claims she was the inspiration for the stalker in the smash Netflix hit "Baby Reindeer" sued the streamer Thursday, demanding $170 million in damages.

Stock markets retreated and the dollar steadied Friday before US jobs data that could play a key role in the Federal Reserve's plans for cutting interest rates, with the central bank's next policy decision looming.

As two Philippine vessels meet on the high seas to transfer a sick Filipino soldier, China Coast Guard boats shadow, block and bump them, according to video released by the Philippine Coast Guard on Friday.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi thanked allied lawmakers Friday for unanimously agreeing to back his third term in office, after an unexpectedly close election forced his party to rely on coalition partners to keep him in power.

President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday urged the West to do more to achieve a fair peace as Ukraine battles the Russian invasion, telling US leader Joe Biden that Kyiv is counting on "shoulder-to-shoulder" support.

The sun beats down from a cloudless sky on the town of Boundiali, where Ivory Coast's first solar power plant embodies the drive to embrace clean energy without abandoning fossil fuels.

In Georgia's oldest gay bar, Tato Londaridze carefully stepped around construction materials as he set out his ambitious plan to put a stage for drag queens on the dance floor.