AFP news

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio will discuss the Gaza ceasefire with Israel's prime minister in Jerusalem on Sunday, launching a Middle East tour a day after the latest hostage-prisoner exchange.

Running late and vastly over budget, a mammoth rail project stands as a monument to what critics say is Germany's glaring failure to tackle long-standing infrastructure woes.

All other German parties see the far-right AfD as a threat to democracy, but the anti-immigration party has a powerful friend abroad: Elon Musk, the loudhailer voice of Team Trump.

Smoke billows from chimneys as factories churn in South Korea's steelmaking heartland, now under threat from Washington's swingeing new tariffs on the port city's largest export.

With Coldplay and Ed Sheeran among the superstars who have played to packed-out crowds in India recently, there is increasing talk that the world's most populous nation could soon become a mainstay of the global touring schedule.

When Germans go to vote in one week's time, after a polarising election campaign overshadowed by a far-right surge, they are expected to hand the chancellery to conservative Friedrich Merz.

Jannik Sinner's long doping saga came to an end on Saturday after he agreed to a three-month ban from tennis, the world number one admitting "partial responsibility" for team mistakes which led to him twice testing positive for traces of clostebol in March last year.

UN chief Antonio Guterres on Saturday demanded that the Democratic Republic of Congo's "territorial integrity" be respected and a regional war avoided, at an African summit the day after Rwandan-backed fighters seized a second DRC provincial capital.

Gaza militants are due to release three Israeli hostages on Saturday in exchange for 369 Palestinians in Israeli custody, the sixth swap of a truce that came close to collapse this week.

An intense Israeli military raid had already sent Qusay Farahat fleeing his home in the occupied West Bank, but the offensive has since expanded, threatening a relative's house where he sought shelter.

M23 fighters on Friday pushed on towards another regional capital in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, prompting shops and businesses to close and frightened civilians to flee, as African leaders urged an immediate ceasefire in the escalating conflict.

US Vice President JD Vance launched a withering attack Friday against European policies on immigration, populist parties and free speech, echoing President Donald Trump whom he called Washington's "new sheriff in town".

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Friday that a Russian drone had struck a cover built to contain radiation at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, adding that radiation levels were normal.

A run of new-release flops and the delay of the latest "Assassin's Creed" instalment sent revenue at French games giant Ubisoft plunging in its third quarter, the company reported Thursday as it continues to weigh its future.

The US State Department backtracked Thursday on a document saying it would award $400 million for electric armored cars by Tesla, whose chief Elon Musk has been aggressively slashing government spending on behalf of President Donald Trump.

Mexico on Thursday threatened to sue Google over its changing the Gulf of Mexico's name to "Gulf of America" for Maps users in the United States to comply with President Donald Trump's executive order.

Donald Trump unveiled an extraordinary vision of a shake-up to the world order Thursday, eyeing a three-way summit with the Russian and Chinese leaders just a day after saying he had agreed with Vladimir Putin to start Ukraine peace talks.

The United States has released Russian cryptocurrency kingpin Alexander Vinnik, as part of an exchange deal that saw Moscow free US teacher Marc Fogel, a senior US official said Thursday.

Stock markets diverged and the dollar dipped Friday as traders tracked US President Donald Trump's latest tariff announcement, economic data and earnings.

Taiwan will boost investment in the United States and on its own defences, President Lai Ching-te said Friday, as Taipei seeks to head off US President Donald Trump's threats of tariffs on its semiconductor chips.

Cold weather, disease and capacity cuts pushed wine production in France's Bordeaux region last year to a low not seen in three-and-a-half decades, the local industry body said Friday.

Alibaba shares soared by more than 6% on Friday following reports that Chinese President Xi Jinping was poised to meet with the tech juggernaut's co-founder Jack Ma.

In a desolate area of Syria where Lebanese militant group Hezbollah once held sway, security forces shot open the gates to an abandoned building and found a defunct drug factory.

At a scam compound in Myanmar, Filipina worker Pieta had just days to romance strangers online and trick them into investing in a fake business -- failing which she would be beaten or tortured with electric shocks.

Bangladeshi high schooler Laiba is being educated for the future, but what she learns has been determined by the latest chapter in her country's battle over its past.

Cambodian scientist Yeang Chheang has spent six decades fighting malaria -- even in the Khmer Rouge labour camp where his wife and baby died -- and stands tantalisingly close to fulfilling his life's work.

Hamas was expected Friday to name three hostages it will release this weekend as part of a planned exchange for Palestinian prisoners, local media said, after days of uncertainty in which Israel threatened to scrap a nearly month-old Gaza ceasefire deal.

President Volodymyr Zelensky is set to meet US Vice President JD Vance in Germany on Friday with a warning against trusting Russia's Vladimir Putin, as concerns mount in Kyiv and among its European allies that the Ukraine war will be settled over their heads.

One victim was visiting Rio de Janeiro's iconic Christ the Redeemer statue.