SCIENCE

A cold, dry part of Chile might not sound like the best place to grow rice, a famously thirsty grain that thrives in tropical conditions.

Europe is "absolutely vital" to the fight against global warming and its leadership must not waver as climate ambition backslides elsewhere, the CEO of November's COP30 summit in Brazil told AFP. In an interview in Paris, Ana Toni urged the European Union to unite around a strong emissions reduction target as the 27-nation bloc squabbles over its level of climate ambition.

A charred Myanmar hillside is wreathed by flames, spewing ochre smoke that smothers out sunlight in an apocalyptic scene.

In 2010, Ghana's Cardinal Peter Turkson said he was not ready to become pope -- and that the Catholic Church might not be either.

Nguyen Thi Kim's small verdant community in northern Vietnam no longer exists, wiped away in a landslide triggered by Typhoon Yagi's devastating heavy rains last year.

On a cloudy spring morning in one of Athens' most densely inhabited districts, thousands of fresh saplings dotting a small hilltop park mark a fledgling effort to tackle crippling heat that critics say is long overdue.

With his storm of tariffs on Chinese goods, US President Donald Trump has torched ties with Beijing and likely wrecked any hope of meeting his counterpart Xi Jinping in the near term, analysts say.

Pope Francis, who died Monday aged 88, will go down in history as a radical pontiff, a champion of underdogs who forged a more compassionate Catholic Church while stopping short of overhauling centuries-old dogma.

Astronomers raised hopes that humanity might not be alone in the universe by announcing on Thursday they have detected the most promising hints yet of life on a distant planet.

The spectre of a transatlantic trade war is also fuelling hopes of a silver lining in Europe: that a commerce deal with four South American countries could get a final green light despite longstanding French opposition.

When the news came through of yet another massacre in the countryside in Nigeria's volatile Plateau state, local Christian Jamaima Haruna was terrified for her Muslim husband.

Singaporeans vote on May 3 in an election that will test Prime Minister Lawrence Wong's leadership, as the wealthy city-state faces a turbulent global economy upended by US tariffs.

In normal conditions, Canadian Air Force helicopter pilot Jonathan Vokey uses the treeline to gauge his altitude.

They whimper, drink from baby bottles and crawl oh so tentatively -- they look like cute white puppies, not the fruit of a daring project to resuscitate an extinct species.

Electricity consumption by data centres will more than double by 2030, driven by artificial intelligence applications that will create new challenges for energy security and CO2 emission goals, the IEA said Thursday.

Britain's King Charles III told Italy's parliament Wednesday that peace is "never to be taken for granted" before ending a visit to Rome with a surprise visit to a convalescing Pope Francis.

Global temperatures hovered at historic highs in March, Europe's climate monitor said on Tuesday, prolonging an unprecedented heat streak that has pushed the bounds of scientific explanation.

First they came for shop owners and bus drivers, ordering them to pay protection money on pain of death.

The EU announced a "new era" in ties with Central Asia on Friday at a major summit in Uzbekistan, as Brussels presses its influence in the region in the face of Russian and Chinese competition.

Making incisions and carefully taking samples, the scientists at a laboratory in Russia's far east looked like pathologists carrying out a post-mortem.

Scientist Inna Birchenko began to cry as she described the smouldering protected forest in Thailand where she was collecting samples from local trees shrouded in wildfire smoke.

Australia has just sweltered through its hottest 12 months on record, a weather official said Thursday, a period of drenching floods, tropical cyclones and mass coral bleaching.

Japan wants to become a hydrogen fuel leader to meet its net-zero goals, but one blockbuster project is hanging in the balance over questions about its climate credentials.

Microsoft was shaped by Bill Gates, Paul Allen, Steve Ballmer and Satya Nadella over the course of the last half-century in the male-dominated tech world.

Experts say that the devastating earthquake in Myanmar on Friday was likely the strongest to hit the country in decades, with disaster modelling suggesting thousands could be dead.

Wildfires in South Korea are now the largest and deadliest on record, having burned more forest and killed more people than any previous blaze, officials said Thursday, as the death toll hit 27.

By 2030, Coca-Cola products will account for an estimated 1.33 billion pounds (602,000 metric tons) of plastic waste entering the world's oceans and waterways each year, according to a stark new analysis published Wednesday by the nonprofit Oceana.

An "unprecedented" mass bleaching event has been recorded off Australia's western coast, scientists said Wednesday, turning huge chunks of a celebrated reef system a sickly dull white.

At least 19 people have been killed in one of South Korea's worst wildfire outbreaks, with multiple raging blazes causing "unprecedented damage", the acting president said Wednesday.