AFP news

Andrey Klimenko hiccups and shifts his weight from one leg to the other.

Yemen's Iran-backed Huthi rebels said they attacked an American aircraft carrier group twice within 24 hours as they prepared for huge rallies on Monday after US strikes left dozens dead.

The race to succeed Thomas Bach as president of the International Olympic Committee is nearing the finish with Juan Antonio Samaranch Junior, Sebastian Coe and Kirsty Coventry widely seen to be clear of the remaining quartet.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer and President Emmanuel Macron teaming up to lead Europe's backing of Ukraine during Donald Trump's tumultuous second presidency highlights a warming British-Franco relationship, insiders and analysts say.

In the cold, lightless Pacific Ocean deep, the seabed is scattered with metal-rich rocks coveted by miners -- and huge numbers of strange and rare animals almost entirely unknown to science.

Only seven years into her marriage did Yuki Niimi first touch her husband -- at a morgue where she collected his body after he was executed and kissed him in a coffin.

Like something from the science fiction film "Dune", the "world's biggest mining dredger" has been swallowing acre after acre of the fertile coastal strip where most of Senegal's vegetables are grown.

The United States flew over 200 alleged members of a Venezuelan gang to be imprisoned in El Salvador, President Nayib Bukele said Sunday, after US counterpart Donald Trump controversially invoked wartime legislation to expel them.

Pope Francis acknowledged being fragile and "facing a period of trial", as he thanked well-wishers Sunday for prayers in a message from hospital, where he has been slowly recovering from pneumonia.

Yemen's Iran-backed Huthis vowed to meet "escalation with escalation" after a wave of deadly US air strikes, with witnesses to the bombing saying Sunday they were taken aback by its intensity, even after years of war.

Israel and Hamas are set for more indirect talks Sunday on the Gaza ceasefire, but deep divisions persist between the two warring sides on the terms of the fragile truce.

A fire tore through a nightclub in North Macedonia early Sunday, killing 59 people, apparently after on-stage fireworks set the place ablaze, authorities said, announcing arrest warrants for four people.

The first US strikes against Yemen's Huthis since Donald Trump took office killed 31 people, the rebels said Sunday, with the US president warning "hell will rain down upon" the Iran-backed group if it did not stop attacking shipping.

Lando Norris kept his cool in a rain-hit and incident-packed season-opening Australian Grand Prix Sunday to edge world champion Max Verstappen with Lewis Hamilton 10th on his Ferrari debut.

With a few taps on his phone, Dandam Nangor knows exactly what temperature his greenhouse is at, when to water his crops and even the pH of the soil.

Frightened by the prospect of US security disengagement and three years of Moscow's war against Ukraine, European countries are debating reinstating compulsory military service to boost their defences in the face of Russian aggression.

For US craft brewer Bill Butcher, President Donald Trump's expanding range of tariffs have sparked an unexpected impact -- a shortage of bottles to package his beer -- while uncertainty looms over his business costs.

Beneath the broken earth of the besieged Sudanese city of El-Fasher in the western region of Darfur, Nafisa Malik clutches her five children close.

France swept to the Six Nations title with a 35-16 victory over Scotland on Saturday, edging out bitter rivals England whose 68-14 rout of hapless Wales had sent the championship battle down to the wire.

Anger was rising in the Democratic ranks Saturday after the party's top US senator led a band of lawmakers in reluctant support of a Republican measure that prevented a government shutdown.

Tens of thousands of protesters converged in Serbia's capital Belgrade Saturday during the latest in a series of anti-corruption demonstrations to upend the Balkan country in recent months.

UK premier Keir Starmer said the "ball was in Russia's court" and that President Vladimir Putin would "sooner or later" have to "come to the table," after a virtual summit on Saturday to drum up support for a coalition willing to protect any eventual ceasefire in Ukraine.

Despite the risks from deadly armed groups roaming the countryside, Judith Kahindo walks alone every day to her isolated cocoa plantation in the war-torn North Kivu region of the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.

President Vladimir Putin on Friday called on beleaguered Ukrainian troops in the Russian region of Kursk to "surrender" after US President Donald Trump pleaded for their lives.

A grisly discovery of charred bones, shoes and clothing at a suspected drug cartel training ground has prompted demands for answers and justice from relatives of the more than 100,000 people missing in Mexico.

Mark Carney was sworn in as Canada's prime minister on Friday, taking charge of a country rattled by a breakdown in US relations since President Donald Trump's return to power.

Hamas said on Friday it was ready to free an Israeli-American hostage and the remains of four others, after the Palestinian militants and Israel resumed indirect Gaza ceasefire negotiations.

Former Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte failed to show in person at the International Criminal Court on Friday at the opening of his crimes against humanity hearing over his deadly crackdown on narcotics.

Former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte's deadly war on drugs has always faced strong opposition on the home front.