AFP news

Google's parent company Alphabet reported robust third-quarter results on Tuesday, with revenue climbing 15 percent year-over-year to $88.3 billion, powered by strong performance from its crucial advertising business and growth in cloud services.

Climate change poses a growing threat to human health in a variety of record-breaking ways, a major report said Wednesday, the experts warning that "wasted time has been paid in lives".

The US economy undershot expectations in the third quarter even as growth remained resilient, according to government data Wednesday, weighing on inflation-weary voters less than a week to the presidential election.

Political uncertainty after Japan's election shock risks slowing economic reforms, pushing up government spending and even holding up the Bank of Japan's exit from its outlier monetary policy, economists said.

Donald Trump and Kamala Harris launch a frantic tour of swing states Wednesday in the final week of the campaign for the US presidency, a day after the vice president told a huge crowd outside the White House that her rival was unstable and itching for unbridled power.

The eurozone economy grew faster than expected between July and September buoyed by Germany's surprise expansion, official data showed Wednesday, but experts warned of slow growth in the months ahead.

Hello Kitty, the cute, enigmatic character that adorns everything from handbags to rice cookers, turns 50 on Friday -- still making millions for her Japanese creators.

Beijing said Wednesday it had lodged a complaint with the World Trade Organization over the European Union's decision to impose hefty tariffs on Chinese-made electric cars.

As a long-tail boat arrives at a fishing village on the southern Thai island of Koh Chang, residents gather to sell their wares -- not seafood, but plastic.

Sandra Demontigny was afraid of being a prisoner in her own body: a 45-year-old diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's, she worried about losing control of her life and burdening those she loves for years.

Alfred Mamba was just 12 when boxing great Muhammad Ali descended on Kinshasa, at that time the capital of Zaire, in October 1974 in a bid to regain his heavyweight title.

The EU on Tuesday decided to impose hefty tariffs on Chinese-made electric cars after an anti-subsidy probe concluded Beijing's support undercut European automakers.

The Catholic Church must make it easier to remove priests who have abused minors while giving victims "access to the truth", a papal commission at the Vatican said Tuesday in its inaugural report on protecting children.

Apple on Monday rolled out its first set of artificial intelligence features, dubbed "Apple Intelligence," across its premium iPhone, iPad, and Mac devices, marking the tech giant's major push into generative AI. The release, first previewed by the company in June, marks Apple's foray into an AI race that has seen the US tech giants rush into ChatGPT-style technology.

Most major global stock markets rose on Tuesday with investors looking ahead to the release of US economic data and the earnings reports of tech titans this week.

Kamala Harris will urge Americans to turn the page on Donald Trump as she delivers her closing election argument Tuesday on the spot where her rival rallied supporters before the January 6, 2021 US Capitol attack.

Global commodity prices should fall to a five-year low next year thanks to a huge oil glut, the World Bank said Tuesday, pointing to oversupply and to flat demand from China.

Moscow said Tuesday it had seized the war-battered mining town of Selydove in eastern Ukraine where Kyiv's forces are buckling and as concern grows in Kyiv and abroad over North Korea's expanding military ties with Russia.

Rape is widespread in Sudan's civil war, a United Nations investigation said Tuesday, accusing paramilitaries especially of committing sexual violence on a "staggering" scale.

Iran's government has proposed tripling its military spending, an official said Tuesday, as tensions with arch-rival Israel rise following recent tit-for-tat missile strikes.

Global business leaders gathered in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday for a glitzy investor forum as conflict shakes the region and scepticism mounts over the Gulf kingdom's most ambitious development projects.

While US arms sales to Taiwan will likely continue whoever wins the presidential election, analysts say there are concerns in Taipei over a re-elected Donald Trump's willingness to defend the island against China.

Iran on Monday executed 69-year-old German-Iranian Jamshid Sharmahd after years in captivity, media in the Islamic Republic said, sparking outrage in Germany and beyond.

Israeli bombardment of Lebanon forced Mohammed Fawaz and his family to flee so often that they finally moved many kilometres (miles) away to find respite in central Iraq.

Rawa curls up on a chair, pulls her knees tight to her chest and hides her face with a large white veil as if to shield herself from the outside world.

Negotiators meet in less than a month to agree on the world's first treaty to end plastic pollution, but countries remain so far apart that a deal may prove impossible.

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, whose operations in Israel were banned by the Israeli parliament on Monday, is seen by some as an "irreplaceable" humanitarian lifeline in Gaza, but as an accomplice of Hamas by others.

Manchester United sacked manager Erik ten Hag on Monday after a disastrous start to the season and are reportedly set to appoint Portuguese coach Ruben Amorim as their next boss.

Georgia's pro-European president Salome Zurabishvili in an interview with AFP Monday alleged that parliamentary polls -- whose results have been rejected by the opposition -- were marred by widespread voting fraud bearing the hallmarks of Russia's influence.