AFP news

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was due to return Wednesday to the Middle East in a new bid to secure a truce in the Israel-Hamas war.

China and Australia claimed to have stabilised long-strained relations after talks in Canberra on Wednesday, despite tensions over a high-profile prisoner, trade and China's crackdowns in Hong Kong and elsewhere remaining evident.

Asian markets mostly rose Wednesday as traders tracked another record day on Wall Street, with focus squarely on the Federal Reserve's policy meeting.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un oversaw a successful test of a solid-fuel engine for a "new-type intermediate-range hypersonic missile", Pyongyang's state media said Wednesday.

In a surf town in El Salvador nicknamed "Bitcoin Beach," shopkeeper Maria Aguirre watched with delight as the cryptocurrency -- and her investment in it -- recently soared to new all-time highs.

South Africa's top diplomat on Tuesday accused Israel of setting a precedent for leaders to defy the top UN court, as she again alleged a campaign of starvation in Gaza.

US President Joe Biden accused election rival Donald Trump of despising Latinos as the incumbent visited the battleground states of Nevada and Arizona on Tuesday, seeking to shore up support from the crucial demographic himself.

DeepMind co-founder Mustafa Suleyman will become the head of a newly created consumer AI unit at Microsoft, the scientist and entrepreneur said on Tuesday.

Israel in January accused several of UNRWA'S roughly 13,000 Gaza employees of being involved in the October 7 attack by Hamas militants on Israel.

The move is one of the clearest attempts yet by Biden to rein in the key US ally, amid fears that the already huge death toll and humanitarian crisis in Gaza could be drastically worsened by a full attack on Rafah.

Trump -- the Republican candidate for November's US presidential election -- intends to challenge the judgment imposed by a New York civil court in February, which would force an automatic stay of enforcement.

Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, US President Joe Biden announced an unprecedented tapping of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) in a move criticized by Republicans.

The 52-year-old tycoon confirmed he takes the anesthetic -- typically used for pain management and to treat depression -- following reports in the US media that his drug use was spooking investors.

The show -- which runs until March 2027 -- brings together 141 Pablo Picasso works that the artist kept for himself, including 10 which were never before seen in Spain.

The United States and South Korea wrapped up one of their major annual joint military exercises last week, prompting angry retorts and live-fire drills from nuclear-armed Pyongyang, which condemns all such exercises as rehearsals for invasion.

The hacker group was born out of a call 48 hours into Russia's invasion by Ukraine's Digital Transformation Minister Mikhailo Fedorov for Kyiv to create an "IT army".

The Bank of Japan's outlier policy of negative rates and massive asset purchases was aimed at jump-starting economic growth and price rises after the "lost decades" of stagnation and deflation.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Tuesday that the United States stands by its "ironclad" commitments to defend longtime ally the Philippines against armed attack in the South China Sea.

Australia on Tuesday scrapped a T20 men's cricket series against Afghanistan later this year, saying the situation for women in the Taliban-ruled country was deteriorating.

A sell-out crowd paid from 880 Hong Kong dollars ($110) to see the eight-time Ballon d'Or winner in action on February 4 in an Inter Miami tour match against a Hong Kong select XI.

The move deepens Nvidia's connections with the Chinese EV industry even as it is separately prohibited by the United States from exporting its most powerful AI hardware to China.

A UN-backed assessment described the increasingly dire situation by noting that without a surge of aid famine would hit the 300,000 people in Gaza's war-battered north by May.

The company also unveiled a major overhaul which it said would "impact" around 7,500 mainly office-based jobs worldwide and save 800 million euros ($870 million) over the next three years.

The performance of China's economy in the first two months of 2024 was mixed, official figures showed Monday, with sluggish household consumption alongside increased industrial production reflecting an uneven recovery.

A major film that imagines a second civil war in the near-future United States has highlighted fears about the divided state of the nation ahead of November's presidential election.

Friends and allies of Russian President Vladimir Putin were quick to congratulate him on his election win but Western leaders denounced what they called an illegal election.

As a US campaign to sever TikTok from its Chinese parent heads to the Senate, analysts say Beijing's response to a forced sale of the app -- and its 'secret sauce' algorithm -- will be clear: Hands off.

Russia's election commission on Monday hailed what it said were "record" results for President Vladimir Putin, guaranteeing the former spy a fifth term in office after a vote that featured no credible opposition.

Seoul's Unification Ministry on Monday added its voice to growing speculation around Kim Jong Un's succession plans, saying they have not "ruled out" that his daughter could be next in line to lead North Korea.