AFP news

Donald Trump has shaken up America and the world in an extraordinary first week back in the White House that saw him remake the US political universe in his own image.

After working for years alongside the United States to combat the Taliban in Afghanistan, Zahra says she was just days from being evacuated to America when President Donald Trump suspended refugee admissions.

Israeli troops fired at residents of south Lebanon on Sunday, killing two and wounding 32, health officials said, as hundreds of people tried to return to their homes on the deadline for Israeli forces to withdraw from the area.

US President Donald Trump floated a plan to "just clean out" Gaza, and said he wants Egypt and Jordan to take Palestinians from the territory, as a fragile truce between Israel and Hamas aimed at permanently ending the war enters its second week on Sunday.

After 13 years in Hong Kong as a refugee, John received plane tickets that would grant his family new lives in the United States -- only for them to be snatched away with a stroke of the pen by President Donald Trump.

Reclusive Moscow-allied Belarus will hold a presidential election Sunday, with President Alexander Lukashenko set to cruise through to victory unchallenged for a seventh term, prolonging his three-decade authoritarian rule.

Britain's Labour government hopes to stay in US President Donald Trump's good books by mobilising the royal family and a former spin doctor dubbed the "Prince of Darkness".

US President Donald Trump held a victory rally in Las Vegas on Saturday, wrapping up a tumultuous week that saw him double down on promises to reshape American politics and culture.

Cody Gakpo struck twice as Premier League leaders Liverpool thrashed Ipswich 4-1 to maintain their six-point lead over Arsenal, who survived Myles Lewis-Skelly's controversial red card to snatch a 1-0 win at Wolves in the Premier League on Saturday.

Some of the few remaining survivors of Auschwitz will gather at the site of the Nazi death camp on Monday as the world marks the 80th anniversary of its liberation in the final months of World War II. Around 50 ex-inmates are expected at a ceremony outside the historic gate of Auschwitz II-Birkenau alongside dozens of leaders including King Charles III and French President Emmanuel Macron.

Three South African peacekeepers have been killed in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, where fighting intensified on Saturday between the Congolese army and Rwandan-backed M23 fighters, a political party said.

Dozens of masked, armed Palestinian militants arrived at a key square in Gaza City on Saturday, where four Israeli women hostages are expected to be handed over to the Red Cross.

The Sudanese army said Friday it broke a siege of its headquarters in Khartoum by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, which had encircled it since war broke out in April 2023.

The DR Congo army and M23 fighters clashed outside Goma on Friday as the UK, United States and France urged citizens to leave the main city in the country's volatile east, warning the situation could deteriorate rapidly.

A senior Hamas official told AFP that his group will provide on Friday the names of four Israeli women hostages to be freed the following day in the second exchange of a ceasefire agreement.

Global stock markets rose Friday after a record day on Wall Street in response to US President Donald Trump's tax-cut pledge and his more friendly comments with regard to China.

Helicopter pilot Tim Thomas has fought dozens of wildfires all over the world, but nothing prepared him for the scale and the challenge of the devastating blazes that ripped through Los Angeles.

Italian bank Monte dei Paschi di Siena said Friday that it was launching a bid for its larger rival Mediobanca, a potential 13.3 billion euro ($13.9 billion) deal that could help reshape the country's banking sector.

Europe should take greater risks and plough more money into artificial intelligence, Meta's chief AI scientist Yann LeCun told AFP at the World Economic Forum.

The Louvre in Paris opened its first-ever fashion exhibition on Friday, seeking to draw new, younger audiences to the world's most popular museum.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is ready to talk to US counterpart Donald Trump but is waiting for signals from Washington first, the Kremlin said on Friday, fuelling expectations the two would be in contact.

Two buildings branded "Saudi House" and "Saudi At Davos" stand out on the chic main street of the Swiss Alpine village hosting the World Economic Forum, showcasing the kingdom's growing presence at major international events.

Bob Dylan's rich legacy of more than 50 albums is a counterpoint to "narcissistic" modern music focused on "me, me, me", the director of the recently released biopic about the singer told AFP. James Mangold, in Paris ahead of the release of "A Complete Unknown" in French cinemas, said that delving into Dylan's early career in the 1960s involved immersing himself in a different, simpler world.

With the European economy lagging behind the United States, the head of the International Monetary Fund had a piece advice for the continent on Friday: "Believe in yourself."

Hundreds of migrants in the United States were arrested Thursday and others flown out of the country on military aircraft as President Donald Trump's promised mass deportation operation got underway, the White House said.

Afghan taekwondo star Marzieh Hamidi told AFP the death threats she has received, forcing her to live under French police protection, show how effective her stinging criticism of the Taliban has been.

All signs of life have disappeared from the bombed-out houses and empty streets of the Lebanese border town of Naqura, but despite a fragile Hezbollah-Israel ceasefire that has held since November, no one can return.

In a field in southwest England where his dairy cows graze, Adam Stanbury said he feared the government's new farm tax, coupled with existing economic headwinds, will ruin his family business and many others.

On a frosty Polish winter evening, 96-year-old Esther Senot told the 100 or so shivering students at Auschwitz-Birkenau how she was a teenager much like them when she was first brought to the Nazi death camp on September 2, 1943.