AFP news

China presents the top challenge to the United States in all of its history, surpassing the Cold War, a top US official said Wednesday, as he urged Europe to get tougher on Beijing.

Russia's counteroffensive to retake Ukrainian-held territory in the Kursk region has been "stopped", a spokesman from Ukraine's military administration there told AFP on Wednesday, after Moscow said it was beginning to repel the surprise incursion.

With full military honours and proud family members looking on, two Allied servicemen were laid to rest Wednesday, 80 years after giving their lives to liberate Europe from the Nazis.

A Chinese naval formation led by the Liaoning aircraft carrier sailed through waters northeast of Taiwan on Wednesday and continued towards the southeast of Japan's Yonaguni Island, Taipei's government said.

An EU court on Wednesday scrapped a 1.49-billion euro ($1.65 billion) fine imposed by Brussels against Google over abuse of dominance in online advertising.

Russian operatives are ramping up disinformation operations to malign Vice President Kamala Harris's campaign by disseminating conspiracy-laden videos, Microsoft said Tuesday, amid heightened alert over foreign influence operations targeting the US election.

Stock markets were little changed and the dollar was down slightly Wednesday as investors awaited the US Federal Reserve's first interest rate cut in more than four years.

Japan's new prime minister will be formally elected by parliament on October 1 following next week's leadership contest, a ruling party official said Wednesday.

Tupperware Brands and some of its subsidiaries have filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and are seeking a buyer, the food container firm said, after years of dwindling sales.

Each year the world produces around 400 million tonnes of plastic waste, much of it discarded after just a few minutes of use.

Hezbollah vowed on Wednesday to punish Israel for a deadly attack in which hundreds of paging devices used by the militant group's members exploded almost simultaneously across Lebanon.

Ratcliffe-on-Soar Power Station has dominated the landscape of the English East Midlands for nearly 60 years, looming over the small town of the same name and a landmark on the M1 motorway bisecting Derby and Nottingham.

Factory roofs blown off, products worth millions of dollars destroyed, supply chains disrupted: Typhoon Yagi has had a disastrous impact on local and global companies in northern Vietnam who could take months to recover, business leaders warn.

Almost 200 environmental activists were murdered last year, with the toll especially heavy in South America, according to rights group Global Witness.

As the female winemaker who put Chinese vintages on the map for the first time, Zhang Jing of Helan Qingxue winery is a trailblazer, but no anomaly.

North Korea fired a salvo of short-range ballistic missiles early Wednesday, Seoul's military said, Pyongyang's second such weapons test in a week.

Indian-administered Kashmir began voting Wednesday in the first local elections since the cancellation of its special semi-autonomous status sparked fury in the troubled Himalayan territory, which is also claimed by Pakistan.

Bayern Munich became the first team to score nine goals in a game in the modern Champions League as the new format of Europe's elite club competition kicked off on Tuesday, with title holders Real Madrid and Liverpool also among the winners.

Negotiators from Boeing and the machinists union representing its workers resumed talks Tuesday after some 33,000 employees went on strike late last week, effectively shutting down two Seattle-area factories.

An Al-Qaeda-linked jihadist group on Tuesday claimed responsibility for an attack on a military airport and training centre in Bamako, the first attack of its kind in years to hit the Malian capital.

The United States, Spain and the Czech Republic on Monday demanded information from Venezuela about six of their citizens detained in the South American country over an alleged plot to assassinate President Nicolas Maduro.

The town of Springfield has seen some three dozen bomb threats as it endures being the center of Republican-boosted conspiracy theories about immigration, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine said Monday.

Infections of drug-resistant superbugs are projected to kill nearly 40 million people over the next 25 years, a global analysis predicted on Monday, with the researchers urging action to avoid this grim scenario.

UN member states will debate Tuesday a push by the Palestinians to formally demand an end to the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories within 12 months.

Negotiators from Boeing and the machinists union are scheduled to resume talks Tuesday after some 33,000 workers went on strike late last week.

Shares in Chinese electronic appliance maker Midea closed nearly eight percent higher on its Hong Kong debut Tuesday, having raised around US$4 billion in the city's biggest initial public offering for more than three years.

Most Asian markets rose Tuesday but Tokyo sank more than one percent as exporters were hit by a stronger yen with traders gearing up for a bumper US interest rate cut and a key Japanese central bank meeting.

Developing countries will need trillions of dollars in the years ahead to deal with climate change -- but exactly how much is needed, and who is going to pay for it?

Meta said it is banning Russian state media outlets from its apps around the world, prompting an angry reaction from the Kremlin on Tuesday.