AFP news

A spaceship built by a company in Texas is poised for lunar touchdown on Thursday, returning America to the Moon after more than five decades in what promises to be a historic first for the private sector.

Fifteen candidates in Senegal's delayed presidential election have accused President Macky Sall of "ill will" and vowed to take action to ensure a new poll date is swiftly established.

Milan Fashion Week kicked off its runway shows Wednesday with the fashion set tackling a fresh round of sashaying, posing and air-kissing -- even amid an uncertain outlook for luxury.

In the shade of a sacred tree, Indigenous wise men chew coca leaves as they mull the threats to their home among the melting, snow-capped peaks of Colombia's Sierra Nevada mountains.

Lawyers for the United States on Wednesday urged a UK court to block a last-ditch bid by Julian Assange to appeal his extradition to the country to face espionage charges.

Foreign ministers of the G20 group of nations open a two-day meeting Wednesday in Brazil, with a bleak outlook for progress on a thorny agenda of conflicts and crises, from the Gaza and Ukraine wars to growing polarization.

Pregnant women had C-sections cancelled and cancer treatments were postponed Wednesday as the number of South Korean trainee doctors to walk off the job over proposed reforms swelled, officials and local reports said.

As Tibetans prepare to mark 65 years since a failed uprising against Chinese rule and questions loom over the Dalai Lama's successor, the diaspora's elected leader said Beijing is crushing his people.

Former US President George W. Bush believed he had a "sense of his soul".

Having rushed to join the Ukrainian army when Russia invaded, Ivan Zadontsev is now exhausted as the grinding campaign enters its third year.

Stricken by drought and depleted by upstream dams, Iraq's once mighty rivers the Tigris and Euphrates are suffocating under pollutants from sewage to medical waste.

The sound of gentle tapping filled a jewellery workshop in southern China as a craftsman hammered pine leaf patterns onto a soft slab of gold in the style of old ink paintings.

Rockets at dawn, gunfire outside, hours of anxiety: a survivor of the October 7 attack shared his account of the day Gaza militants stormed his southern Israeli community, speaking into a video camera.

A Moscow court on Tuesday said jailed US journalist Evan Gershkovich would remain in pre-trial detention until at least March 30, ensuring he will spend at least a year behind bars, as Russia separately slapped a ban on a US-funded broadcaster.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken landed in Brazil on Tuesday for his first trip to the South American nation, arriving amid a diplomatic spat after President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva enraged Washington ally Israel by comparing its Gaza campaign to the Holocaust.

Eleven Ukrainian children crossed the border from Belarus to Ukraine Tuesday evening, in the latest return of children taken to Russia and occupied territories during the nearly two-year Ukraine war.

Ukraine said on Tuesday it was fighting off dozens of Russian attacks as Moscow claimed the recapture of a bridgehead, days after it seized a key town amid stalled Western aid deliveries to Kyiv.

As the Gaza war rages and the Muslim holy month of Ramadan nears, concern has grown over potential tensions at Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa mosque compound, a past flashpoint for violence.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was absent from a London court due to illness Tuesday, as his lawyers launched a likely last UK bid to appeal against his extradition to the United States to face espionage charges.

Criminals have overtaken your computer network, they are threatening to leak your most sensitive secrets and your share price is tumbling.

The United States indicated it will veto a UN Security Council resolution Tuesday calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, while circulating its own proposal for an eventual truce as President Joe Biden comes under pressure to dial back support for Israel.

The mother of Alexei Navalny urged Russian President Vladimir Putin to "immediately" release the body of her son, in her first comments since his death in an Arctic prison.

An international law enforcement operation has taken down dozens of servers and disrupted LockBit, "the world's most harmful cyber crime group" according to British authorities.

Julian Assange, the 52-year-old Australian fighting extradition from Britain to the United States, is for some a fearless campaigner for press freedom.

Dotting the asphalt, they come in various shapes and sizes, costing drivers a fortune in vehicle repairs and even lives.

Israel hit Gaza with new air strikes on Tuesday as world powers grappled with how to broker a ceasefire ahead of a UN Security Council vote.

The glittering diamonds sparkle the same but there are key differences: mined natural gems are more than a billion years old, while laboratory-made rocks are new and cost less than half the price.

Ukrainian troops, reeling from the loss of a key town, now face "extremely difficult" conditions all along the frontline with Russia because of delayed foreign aid, President Volodymyr Zelensky said.

Palestinian foreign minister Riyad Al-Maliki told the UN's top court Monday his people were suffering "colonialism and apartheid" under the Israelis, urging judges to order an immediate and unconditional end to the occupation.