AFP news

Israel's top diplomat on Wednesday said any chance to free hostages held in Gaza "must not be missed", after US President Donald Trump urged Palestinian group Hamas to agree to a 60-day ceasefire that he said had Israel's backing.

Asian markets swung Wednesday amid trade war worries after Donald Trump said he would not push back next week's tariff deadline, with Tokyo taking a hit from threats to ramp up Japanese levies.

There were so many mines on Larisa Sysenko's small farm in Kamyanka in eastern Ukraine after the Russians were pushed out that she and her husband Viktor started demining it themselves -- with rakes.

When Jocelyn Leitzinger had her university students write about times in their lives they had witnessed discrimination, she noticed that a woman named Sally was the victim in many of the stories.

A nickel stockpile towers over farmer Moharen Tambiling's rice paddy in the Philippines' Palawan, evidence of a mining boom that locals hope a new moratorium will tame.

US President Donald Trump urged Hamas on Tuesday to accept a 60-day ceasefire in Gaza, saying that Israel had agreed to finalize such a deal, as its forces also stepped up operations in the Palestinian territory.

Emmanuel Macron and Vladimir Putin on Tuesday spoke by telephone for the first time in over two-and-a-half years, with the French president urging a ceasefire in Ukraine but the Russian leader hitting back that the West was to blame for the conflict.

More than 14 million of the world's most vulnerable people, a third of them small children, could die by 2030 because of the Trump administration's dismantling of US foreign aid, research projected on Tuesday.

Israel's military said Tuesday that it had expanded its operations in Gaza, where residents reported fierce gunfire and shelling days ahead of a planned trip to Washington by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra was suspended by the country's Constitutional Court on Tuesday, while her father went on trial for royal defamation in the latest setbacks for the country's dominant political dynasty.

Embarrassed and in debt, Edwin was left reeling after losing $16,000 to CryptoBridge Exchange (CBEX), one of the crypto-trading platforms preying on investors in Africa.

Asian stocks rose Tuesday amid optimism countries will strike US trade deals, though Tokyo's Nikkei sank after Donald Trump threatened to impose a fresh tariff rate on Japan as he hit out at the country over rice and autos.

The memory of Bangladeshi police with shotguns twice blasting the young protester beside him still haunts Hibzur Rahman Prince, one year after a revolution that has left the country mired in turmoil.

Paris was on red alert for high temperatures on Tuesday, with the top of the Eiffel Tower shut, polluting traffic banned and speed restrictions in place as a searing heatwave gripped Europe.

Carlos Alcaraz survived a major scare in his Wimbledon opener while Aryna Sabalenka kept her cool to cruise into the second round on the hottest opening day in the tournament's history.

Gaza's civil defence agency said Israeli forces killed at least 48 people on Monday, including 21 at a seafront rest area, as fresh calls grew for a ceasefire in the war-ravaged Palestinian territory.

Spain and Portugal reported record temperatures Monday as Italy and France braced for several more days of a punishing heatwave that has gripped southern Europe and Britain, sparking health and wildfire warnings.

The High Court in London rejected a legal challenge on Monday brought by a Palestinian rights group seeking to block the UK from supplying components for Israeli F-35 fighter jets.

With "Britpop" bands Oasis and Pulp topping the charts and filling concert halls, a 90s vibe is floating over the UK this summer amid nostalgia for a "cooler" time when people seemed "happier".

Hajjar Shademani's family waited for hours in the heat and dust after crossing the border into Afghanistan, their neat pile of suitcases all that remained of a lifetime in Iran after being deported to their homeland.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his country's recent war with Iran had created "opportunities" for freeing hostages held by Hamas militants in Gaza, where witnesses and rescuers reported more than 30 people killed Sunday.

Iran warned Sunday that it had little faith in Israel's commitment to a fragile ceasefire that ended the most intense and destructive confrontation between the two foes to date.

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Sunday added his voice to those condemning a British punk-rap group for anti-Israel remarks at the Glastonbury music festival, an incident that has already sparked a police inquiry.

A court hearing that could upend the leadership of Turkey's main opposition CHP is the latest bid to hobble the party behind a wave of spring protests that shook the government, analysts say.

Britain is preparing to emulate the United States by appointing an envoy tasked with freeing citizens arbitrarily detained abroad, as it faces calls to do more to bring them home.

When Moscow invaded Ukraine, Pavel Talankin, a staff member at a secondary school in Russia's Ural Mountains, was ordered to film patriotic lessons, songs and morning drills.

Around 140,000 protesters rallied in Belgrade, the largest turnout in recent months, as student-led demonstrations mount pressure on the populist government to call early elections.

Southern Europeans braced Saturday for their first heatwave of the northern hemisphere summer, as climate change pushes thermometers on the world's fastest-warming continent increasingly into the red.

Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo signed a peace agreement Friday in Washington to end fighting that has killed thousands, with the two countries pledging to pull back support for guerrillas -- and President Donald Trump boasting of securing mineral wealth.