AFP news

Germany's conservative leader Friedrich Merz suffered a serious blow on Tuesday when he failed to win a parliamentary majority in the first round of voting on him becoming the next chancellor.

Drones struck the airport and knocked out power across Port Sudan on Tuesday, officials said, the third straight day the Sudanese army-aligned government's seat of power has come under attack.

Russian President Vladimir Putin will address the "grandest" ever annual Victory Day parade in Moscow on Friday, evoking the Soviet Union's defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II to rally support for his troops fighting in Ukraine.

To many, Tatu City on the outskirts of Nairobi looks like a success. But to some local politicians, Tatu City has looked more like a target for extortion.

Zhao Xintong became the first Chinese player to win the World Snooker Championship as the qualifier completed his stunning march to the title with a 18-12 victory against Mark Williams in the final on Monday.

Philippine Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle may be one of the favourites to be named the next pope, but a Catholic Sister who has known him for half a century says she will never pray for it to happen.

Hollywood reacted Monday with skepticism to US President Donald Trump's announcement of 100 percent tariffs on foreign films, with movie insiders calling it a policy made up on the fly by a president who fails to understand how the industry works.

Renee Guette, 98, laughed as she looked at her computer screen in Texas.

When they saw men with arrows and machetes bearing down on them, Daniel Braun and other Mennonites living in the Peruvian Amazon fled across rice paddies, some of their barns ablaze behind them.

It's the first Monday in May, which means it's time for the Met Gala, the extravagant Manhattan charity ball that this year spotlights Black style through the lens of dandyism's subversive history.

Pro-EU Romania is facing a possible foreign policy shift, with a far-right leader -- and fan of US President Donald Trump -- topping the first round of a tense election rerun and now up against a centrist mayor for president.

The Druze are a prominent religious community of more than a million people spread mainly across Syria, Lebanon and Israel, who for centuries have sought to preserve a distinct identity.

A military parade and planned balcony appearance by the royal family on Monday kicked off four days of UK celebrations marking 80 years since the end of World War II. King Charles III, Prime Minister Keir Starmer and thousands of spectators watched as NATO personnel from the US, France and Germany, along with a small number of Ukrainian troops, joined a military procession that began with Winston Churchill's 1945 victory speech, voiced by actor Timothy Spall.

Catholic cardinals will enter into conclave this week to choose a new pope, with the Church's 1.4 billion members holding their breath over an uncertain outcome.

The cause of last week's massive power outage in Spain and Portugal remains unclear but it has shone a spotlight on solar and wind energy, which critics accuse of straining electricity grids.

In the dusty alleys of Nima, a shanty town in the heart of Ghana's capital, a 17-year-old called Ghost reclines on a faded plastic chair inside a dimly lit internet cafe.

Israel's security cabinet approved the expansion of military operations in Gaza including the "conquest" of the Palestinian territory, an official said Monday, after the army called up tens of thousands of reservists for the offensive.

Jury selection begins Monday in New York in the blockbuster federal sex trafficking trial of music mogul Sean "Diddy" Combs, who stands accused of years of harrowing abuse.

The US Federal Reserve is widely expected to extend a recent pause in rate cuts this week as it waits to see how President Donald Trump's stop-start tariff rollout affects the health of the world's largest economy.

US President Donald Trump said in remarks airing Sunday that he does not know whether he must uphold the US Constitution, the nation's founding legal document.

Sudanese paramilitaries on Sunday struck Port Sudan, the army said, in the first attack on the seat of the army-aligned government in the country's two-year war.

Romanians voted on Sunday in a tense rerun of November's annulled presidential election that plunged the European Union member into deep crisis, with a far-right candidate expected to top the first round.

A missile struck inside the perimeter of Israel's main airport on Sunday, wounding six people, halting flights and gouging a wide crater, in an attack claimed by Yemen's Iran-backed Huthi rebels.

With a thumping success in local elections this week, the hard-right Reform UK party has loosened Britain's two-party stranglehold and is already eyeing Downing Street.

As dusk falls, some 500 Indigenous people stand in formation in Lauca Ene, a hamlet in central Bolivia, and raise their spears to the cry of "Long live Evo Morales!"

Israel was issuing orders to call up tens of thousands of reservists ahead of an expanded offensive in Gaza, Israeli media reported Saturday, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attacked truce mediator Qatar.

Admired for his investing prowess and a taste for the simple things in life rather than luxury, billionaire Warren Buffett has won public affection even as he amassed a fortune for the ages -- riches that the "Oracle of Omaha" has pledged to give away.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has dismissed a three-day truce ordered by Russian leader Vladimir Putin as theatrics but said Kyiv was ready for a full ceasefire.

Singaporeans cast their votes Saturday in an election where Prime Minister Lawrence Wong faces his first major test against a rejuvenated opposition in uncertain economic times for the trade-centred nation.