AFP news

Ukraine stepped up attacks behind Russian lines on Wednesday with the apparent killing of a Russian election official in a car bomb and a drone assault on a metals plant.

A violent stand-off between local residents and squatters that invaded a field outside Bloemfontein starkly underlines the politics behind South Africa's housing crisis ahead of May's cliff-edge general election.

A surprise deal reached one year ago to mend ties with Iran has paid dividends for Saudi Arabia, largely shielding it from the Israel-Hamas war and related unrest, analysts say.

From the outside, Seoul's main hospitals seem unchanged: ambulances pull up, patients walk in, staff in white coats walk around purposefully.

US President Joe Biden called on Hamas on Tuesday to accept a Gaza ceasefire deal by the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, while the Palestinian militant group warned talks for a truce and hostage release cannot go on "indefinitely".

Forced to flee her home by Israeli bombardment, Asmaa Ahmed gave birth in the middle of the night in a Gaza City school that had no electricity.

Poignant images of an anguished Shiri Bibas clutching her two red-headed boys as she was kidnapped by Hamas on October 7 have turned her into the face of the Israeli hostages seized that day.

Once a housewife in rural India, Sharmila Yadav always wanted to be a pilot and is now living her dream remotely, flying a heavy-duty drone across the skies to cultivate the country's picturesque farmlands.

Venezuela will go to the polls on July 28 to choose a president, the electoral authority said Tuesday, with incumbent Nicolas Maduro widely expected to stand and his main challenger precluded from running.

Children have begun starving to death in Gaza, where the United Nations has warned a famine is "almost inevitable."

Polls began closing Tuesday on the biggest day of the year for US presidential primaries, with Donald Trump expected to cement his hold on the Republican nomination and set up a rematch with President Joe Biden in November.

British actress Charlotte Lewis on Tuesday told a French court she had been the victim of a "smear campaign" after she accused Franco-Polish filmmaker Roman Polanski of sexually abusing her as a teenager.

Ukraine said on Tuesday its forces had destroyed a Russian military patrol ship in the Black Sea near annexed Crimea, the latest naval attack on Moscow's fleet in the key waterway.

In her quest for "fair skin", an Ivorian YouTuber recently visited a market stall in Abidjan to receive several injections promoted as containing whitening agents.

The Philippines said Tuesday that China Coast Guard vessels caused two collisions with Philippine boats and water cannoned one of them, leaving four crew injured during a resupply mission in the South China Sea.

China's economic troubles are far from over and leaders admit the country will face an uphill struggle in hitting its goals for 2024, piling on the pressure for stimulus and reforms that experts say are needed to reverse the malaise.

Ten years after her mother disappeared on Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, Grace Nathan still struggles to accept that she is gone.

Clamping down harder and faster on abuses of power by the world's biggest digital companies: such is the promise of the European Union's new legal arsenal, which comes into full force from Thursday.

More women are taking top management jobs but inequality persists, with men still dominating business leadership roles, research showed ahead of International Women's Day on March 8.

China set on Tuesday a growth target of around five percent for 2024, an ambitious objective analysts said would be a challenge to meet given the severe headwinds battering the world's second-largest economy.

International mediators and Hamas delegates were in Cairo Tuesday for talks to try to secure a pause in the war in Gaza ahead of the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

When US President Joe Biden gives his State of the Union speech on Thursday, it will be the culmination of three months' intensive work for his speechwriters.

From dramas about the atomic bomb and Auschwitz, to comedies about dolls and sex-mad reanimated corpses, the lineup of best picture contenders at Sunday's Oscars is the most varied in years.

The US Supreme Court on Monday removed a potential hurdle to Donald Trump's bid to recapture the White House, unanimously dismissing a state court ruling that could have barred him from the ballot for engaging in insurrection.

The French parliament voted Monday to anchor the right to abortion in the constitution, making France the first country in the world to offer explicit protection for terminating a pregnancy in its basic law.

The EU on Monday hit Apple with a more than 1.8-billion-euro fine ($1.9 billion) for violating the bloc's laws by preventing European users from accessing information about alternative, cheaper music streaming services.

China's leadership is confident the economy will improve, an official said Monday, ahead of a key political meeting in which Beijing is expected to unveil one of its most pessimistic growth targets in years.

US Vice President Kamala Harris urged an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, upping the pressure on key ally Israel as heavy fighting raged in the Palestinian territory.

Jennifer spent her weekend calling California voters, urging them to cast their ballot in Tuesday's primary election for Democrat Peter Dixon.