AFP news

New Zealand's prime minister on Tuesday proposed banning children under 16 from social media, stressing the need to protect them from the perils of big tech platforms.

Stock markets diverged Tuesday as investors awaited a US Federal Reserve interest-rate meeting for signs of the outlook for the tariffs-hit economy.

US delivery service DoorDash has agreed to take over UK peer Deliveroo in a deal worth GBP2.9 billion ($3.9 billion), according to a joint statement on Tuesday.

Cardinals will on Tuesday begin moving into the Vatican accommodation where they will stay during the conclave, on the eve of their historic, secretive meeting to elect a new pope.

An Australian woman accused of murdering three people with a toxic mushroom-laced lunch rejected offers of help before serving the dish, the sole guest to survive the deadly meal told a court on Tuesday.

Australia still wants to make "great films" with the United States, Foreign Minister Penny Wong said Tuesday, as new tariffs threaten the home of Hollywood hits like The Matrix, Elvis and Crocodile Dundee.

Hamas on Tuesday dismissed as pointless ceasefire talks with Israel, accusing it of waging a "hunger war" on Gaza as famine looms and Israel prepares for a broader assault on the war-ravaged Palestinian territory.

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.