AFP news

North Korean state media said Monday that an investigation had "proved" South Korea's military sent a drone over Pyongyang to drop propaganda leaflets, calling it an infringement of sovereignty.

The German CEO of major Japanese optical equipment manufacturer Olympus has stepped down after allegedly buying illegal drugs, the company said on Monday.

Global stocks diverged and oil prices tumbled on Monday as markets were relieved that Israel's strikes on Iran had avoided the country's energy infrastructure.

A record number of women have been elected to Japan's house of representatives, projections showed Monday, but at less than 16 percent they remain a minority.

A nail-biting US presidential campaign heads into its final week Monday, with polls showing little daylight between the two candidates as they ramp up appeals to their respective bases to turn out and vote.

Greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere reached new record highs in 2023, the UN warned on Monday, with countries falling "miles short" of what is needed to curb devastating global warming.

Flagrant violations of the laws of war in the escalating conflict in the Middle East are setting a dangerous precedent, aid workers in the region warn.

Georgia braced for protests on Monday after the pro-EU opposition called for mass demonstrations, accusing the ruling party of "stealing" this weekend's parliamentary election with Russian help.

Afghanistan's morality ministry is gradually introducing a ban on images of living beings in media, with multiple provinces announcing restrictions and some Taliban officials refusing to be photographed or filmed, journalists across the country told AFP. Since mid-October the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice (PVPV) has held meetings with journalists in one province after another.

Israeli forces launched deadly strikes on Lebanon and Gaza on Monday, pressing their offensive against militants after Egypt's president proposed a two-day truce in the Israel-Hamas war.

Actor Gerard Depardieu on Monday asked for a delay to the start of his trial on sexual assault charges, saying his health prevented him from attending the proceedings, with numerous other complaints and a possible second court case already lying in wait.

Every rainy season for the past 12 years, floods have swept through 67-year-old Idris Egbunu's house in central Nigeria.

Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba faced the prospect of minority rule Monday after his gamble of snap elections backfired with the ruling party's worst election result in 15 years.

Hundreds died in the student-led revolution that toppled Bangladesh's autocratic leader Sheikh Hasina, but those impacted in the violent aftermath fear the new authorities' promise of justice will exclude them.

"It barely exists anymore," said the mayor of Vovchansk, an industrial town razed by a Russian onslaught shocking even for the killing fields of eastern Ukraine.

Kamala Harris and Donald Trump will make a final push to break their bitter deadlock as they head into the last week of the most dramatic and divisive White House race in modern times.

Carlos Sainz cruised to an emotional victory for Ferrari ahead of McLaren's Lando Norris in Sunday's incident-filled Mexico City Grand Prix as Red Bull's series leader Max Verstappen was handed two 10-second penalties on his way to sixth.

Donald Trump supporters lined up for his rally Sunday at a famous New York arena while Kamala Harris went neighborhood to neighborhood in Philadelphia, just over a week before America votes in an extraordinarily close White House race.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared on Sunday that Israel's "precise and powerful" strikes on Iran had been a success, as his country's forces pounded targets in Gaza and Lebanon.

Georgia plunged into political turmoil on Sunday after the ruling party declared victory in parliamentary elections decried by the opposition as "falsified".

Bulgarians voted Sunday in their seventh election in less than four years, with little hope of an end to political turmoil that has favoured the country's far right.

Israel bombarded Hezbollah and Hamas targets in Lebanon and Gaza on Sunday, with no respite in the conflict one day after its strikes on Iran raised fears of a broader war.

Rows of robotic arms move with precision to assemble nickel-based battery cells on the production line at Indonesia's inaugural electric vehicle battery plant, the first in Southeast Asia.

Dressed in a pristine white knit top, Robyn Qiu cut an incongruous figure in her parents' dusty, hangar-like metal hardware factory in eastern China as she gestured excitedly while an assistant filmed her on a smartphone.

With the US presidential election heading into the home stretch, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will likely be hoping for Donald Trump to return to the White House.

Michelle Obama on Saturday aired her "genuine fear" that Donald Trump could retake the White House as the popular former first lady made a passionate appeal to voters in the desperately close US election.

Georgia's ruling party was on course to win a closely watched election Saturday, according to partial results that were rejected as "falsified" by pro-Western opposition parties which denounced a "constitutional coup".

The deployment of North Korean troops to help Russia in its war against Ukraine is unlikely to have a significant impact on the fighting on the ground but could affect security interests in Asia, Europe, and elsewhere, analysts said.

Israel bombed military targets in Iran on Saturday, killing at least two soldiers, fulfilling a vow to avenge a missile barrage and stirring fears of a full-scale Middle East war.