AFP news

Sufi singer Jamal has spent decades devoted to his craft but now fears for his future as hardline Islamists gain ground in post-revolution Bangladesh.

Deep in the rugged forests of North Macedonia, small-hydropower developers are facing off with activists who warn that a thirst for lucrative green energy contracts is threatening the country's rivers.

Japan marked 80 years since the atomic bombing of Hiroshima on Wednesday with a ceremony reminding the world of the horrors unleashed, as sabre-rattling between the United States and Russia keeps the nuclear "Doomsday Clock" close to midnight.

A "one-in, one-out" deal in which Britain can return some migrants who cross the English Channel in small boats back to France came into force on Tuesday, as the UK government battles people smuggling gangs.

Nations must resolve the global plastics crisis, the head of UN talks told negotiators from 180 countries gathered in Geneva on Tuesday to forge a landmark treaty on eliminating the life-threatening waste.

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prepared Tuesday to unveil an updated Gaza war plan designed to destroy Hamas and secure the release of dozens of hostages, with Israeli media reporting he would order the total occupation of the Palestinian territory.

In Gabon's sprawling forest, archaeologists dig for ancient clues that could unlock the secrets of how prehistoric humans lived and interacted in the changing landscape of central Africa.

Salt crusts crackle underfoot as Habibullah Khatti walks to his mother's grave to say a final goodbye before he abandons his parched island village on Pakistan's Indus delta.

With its historic windmills and gabled wooden houses nestling by a meandering river, the picture-perfect and TikTok-famous area of Zaanse Schans is a must-see for any visitor to the Netherlands.

Cathy and Patrick relish describing how they found each other: through a message left on a Swiss mountaintop.

As it grinds on well into its twenty-second month, Israel's war in Gaza has set friends and families against one another and sharpened existing political and cultural divides.

Countries were to start the clock Tuesday on 10 days of talks aimed at hammering out a landmark global treaty on combating the scourge of plastic pollution.

NGOs in the violence-wracked Sahel region are dangerously caught between military juntas who accuse them of being spies, and jihadists who view them as symbols of Western influence.

Israel said Monday the plight of hostages held in Gaza should top the global agenda, after Palestinian militants released videos showing them looking emaciated, heightening fears for their lives after nearly 22 months in captivity.

Most stock markets bounced on Monday as the chances of US interest rate cuts following a big miss on US jobs creation offset concerns about the world's top economy.

Bae Kyung-mi was five years old when the Americans dropped "Little Boy", the atomic bomb that flattened Hiroshima on August 6, 1945.

When Zhang Dayong lay in a pool of blood on a sidewalk in Rome after being shot six times, few suspected a link to Italy's storied textile hub of Prato.

Atop air strikes, displacement and hunger, an unprecedented water crisis is unfolding across Gaza, heaping further misery on the Palestinian territory's residents.

Pope Leo XIV presided over a final mass in Rome for over one million young people on Sunday, the culmination of a pilgrimage that has drawn Catholics from across the world.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed "profound shock" over videos showing two emaciated hostages in Gaza, with the EU also denouncing the clips on Sunday and demanding the release of all remaining captives after nearly 22 months of war.

Fans of an iconic French car gather this week in Slovenia to reclaim a slow, stress-free way of life where repairs are easy and cars are slow.

The trickle of food aid Israel allows to enter Gaza after nearly 22 months of war is seized by Palestinians risking their lives under fire, looted by gangs or diverted in chaotic circumstances rather than reaching those most in need, UN agencies, aid groups and analysts say.

A craving for international prestige, a decade-long Obama rivalry and perhaps a dash of provocation: a mercurial melange of factors is at play in Donald Trump's obsession with the Nobel Peace Prize.

A robot explores the dark, cold, deep sea floor of the South Atlantic, transmitting images of vibrant coral and fish never seen before as scientists give live commentary via YouTube.

Hundreds of thousands of young faithful cheered Pope Leo XIV Saturday as he arrived by helicopter for an open-air prayer vigil outside Rome, in a rock star welcome for the new head of the Catholic Church.

Former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, whose comments prompted US President Donald Trump to move two nuclear submarines, was once seen as a liberal reformer but has become one of the Kremlin's most prominent anti-Western hawks.

US envoy Steve Witkoff on Saturday met the anguished families of Israeli hostages still held in Gaza, as fears for the captives' survival mounted almost 22 months into the war sparked by Hamas's October 2023 attack.

El Salvador's gang-busting President Nayib Bukele, who can now seek unlimited reelection following a constitutional change, embraces the moniker of "dictator" and breezily shrugs off concerns about human rights transgressions.

US President Donald Trump ordered the deployment of two nuclear submarines Friday in an extraordinary escalation of what had been an online war of words with a Russian official over Ukraine and tariffs.