SCIENCE

Slow and silent, former logging elephant Mae Khoun Nung emerges from a forest in northern Laos and follows her guide to an animal hospital for a check-up.

World Trade Organization chief Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala was reappointed Friday for a second term, in the shadow of the coming return of Donald Trump and his disdain for international trade rules.

At 250 metres underground, the dust is thick and oxygen is in short supply at the Mramor mine in northeastern Bosnia.

EU chief Ursula von der Leyen warned Wednesday that Europe has "no time to waste" to boost its defences and competitiveness, as European lawmakers prepared to greenlight her new executive to start work.

With a month to go until Christmas, Santa Claus is busy preparing, but the warming climate and lack of snow in his Arctic hometown have him worried.

After three sleepless nights of back and forth among negotiators, all it took to seal a contentious global deal on climate finance was the hammering of a gavel.

The world approved a bitterly negotiated climate deal Sunday but poorer nations most at the mercy of worsening disasters dismissed a $300 billion a year pledge from wealthy historic polluters as insultingly low.

New rules allowing wealthy polluting countries to buy carbon-cutting "offsets" from developing nations were agreed at UN climate talks Saturday, a move already raising fears they will be used to greenwash climate targets.

Negotiators raced against the clock at UN climate talks Thursday to broker a trillion-dollar deal to help poorer nations tackle global warming after rich and developing countries roundly rejected a draft deal.

The world's richest man, Elon Musk, has been an ever-present sidekick for President-elect Donald Trump since the US election at the start of the month.

Chinese President Xi Jinping warned Monday the world faces "a new period of major changes" as G20 leaders met in Brazil two months before Donald Trump returns to the White House.

Mashudu Mashau says it takes about two minutes to catch a penguin, a task he does weekly to investigate sightings of injured or sickly seabirds.

Beneath the blazing Egyptian sun, crowds at the Giza Pyramids gazed up at the ancient wonders, but some had their eyes peeled for a new attraction.

Chinese President Xi Jinping said Saturday he was ready to work with Donald Trump's new administration for a "smooth transition" in bilateral ties, as he met outgoing President Joe Biden for the last time.

Germany's Greens have been environmental trailblazers but their top candidate, Robert Habeck, goes into snap national elections bruised by three stormy years in government that ended in a political crisis.

A super typhoon sweeping towards the Philippines on Saturday was intensifying and could have a "potentially catastrophic" impact, the state weather forecaster warned, with millions of people at risk from storm surges.

G20 leaders gather in Brazil on Monday for a G20 summit set to be dominated by differences over wars in the Middle East and Ukraine, and implications of Donald Trump's White House return.

Russia's opposition will stage a major anti-war, anti-Kremlin demonstration in Berlin this weekend, a vital test for a movement driven into exile by war and repression, and plagued by infighting.

Scientists say they have found the world's largest coral near the Pacific's Solomon Islands, announcing Thursday a major discovery "pulsing with life and colour".

Britain's head of state King Charles III turned 76 on Thursday, after a torrid year in which both he and his daughter-in-law Catherine, Princess of Wales, have battled cancer.

Tech entrepreneurs have spent years selling the dream that we can save the planet without changing our ways, but the current focus of innovation is dividing experts and investors.

Afghanistan embassies in Britain and Norway loyal to the pro-Western authorities ousted by the Taliban in 2021 discreetly shut down this autumn, as the West seeks a more pragmatic approach to the country's Islamic rulers.

A controversial trade deal between the EU and South America's Mercosur bloc is back in the spotlight with rekindled optimism that the two sides could conclude an agreement before the year is over.

Donald Trump named more of his incoming team Tuesday, including seasoned figures and hard-liners, ahead of a meeting with President Joe Biden in what will be the Republican's first White House visit since exiting amid scandal four years ago.

Nations have begun setting carbon-cutting targets for the decade ahead, and how ambitious these pledges are could make or break global efforts to avoid dangerous levels of climate change.

The host of the UN climate summit in Azerbaijan on Tuesday defended fossil fuels and the right of countries to exploit them as dozens of world leaders arrived for the COP29 conference.

In a mask and a hazmat suit, Ermek Murataliyev drives a truck filled with Soviet-era radioactive waste along the winding mountain roads of Kyrgyzstan.

US President-elect Donald Trump announced new members of his incoming administration on Monday, and was expected to pick Florida Senator Marco Rubio as secretary of state.

The heavyweights of the EU's new top team are to be quizzed by lawmakers in Brussels on Tuesday during confirmation hearings that are set to lay bare political dividing lines within the bloc.