AFP news

The Threads app launched by Instagram as a rival to Twitter has signed up more than 100 million users in less than five days, data tracking websites said on Monday, smashing the record of AI tool ChatGPT for fastest-growing consumer app.

Six people were killed and one wounded in a kindergarten stabbing in southern China's Guangdong province on Monday, local officials said.

President Volodymyr Zelensky hailed "brave" Ukraine on the 500th day of Russia's invasion on Saturday, as the war's toll mounted with eight deaths reported in Russian rocket fire.

On the 500th day since Russia's invasion and as the war grinds on, Ukrainian forces are advancing slowly without enough arms and ammunition and with its main cities under constant threat.

Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo are pinning hopes for economic revival on the revamp of an iconic African railway connecting mineral-rich inland areas to the Atlantic Ocean.

NATO leaders meet in Lithuania on Tuesday for a summit set to be dominated by the alliance's response to Russia's war on Ukraine and Kyiv's push for membership.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Sunday voiced hope for the "best possible result" from an upcoming NATO summit where Kyiv is hoping for a clear signal that it could one day join the alliance.

Conflict-torn Sudan is on the brink of a "full-scale civil war" that could destabilise the entire region, the United Nations warned Sunday, after an air strike on a residential area killed around two dozen civilians.

To the sound of club beats, hundreds of young Ukrainians swarmed over the ruins of bombed-out homes in several villages in the north of the country this weekend.

South Africa, which has experienced crippling electricity outages in recent months, will "survive" this winter season thanks to a huge improvement in generation, a cabinet minister said on Saturday.

Gabon's President Ali Bongo Ondimba said on Sunday that he would seek a third term as the oil-rich African nation's head of state.

West African heads of state on Sunday chose Nigeria's new President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to lead their regional bloc for the next year, replacing Guinea-Bissau's leader Umaro Sissoco Embalo, AFP journalists reported.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said Sunday that next month's BRICS summit, which Vladimir Putin has been invited to attend, will be held in-person despite an arrest warrant on the Russian leader.

Human Rights Watch on Friday urged Tunisia to put an end to what it called the "collective expulsions" of Black African migrants to a desert area near the Libyan border.

The International Maritime Organization, overseer of the highly-polluting shipping industry, sealed a landmark deal Friday to improve its target to cut carbon emissions but green campaigners said it fell far short.

Plans to discharge treated water from the Fukushima nuclear plant cleared their last regulatory hurdle in Japan on Friday, as China said it would ban some food imports over the move.

Kubik is proud of its pioneering, climate-friendly technology that recycles one of the world's environmental curses -- plastic waste -- into construction blocks.

President Volodymyr Zelensky is set to hold talks with Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday on the latest leg of a tour to push Ukraine's bid to join NATO and secure more weapons from allies.

France's star footballer Kylian Mbappe arrived in Cameroon to an ecstatic welcome from fans Thursday for a visit that includes charity work with deaf children and a trip to his father's village.

In the southern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia, couples stroll in a popular park and parents push their children on swings on a hot summer day.

EU lawmakers on Thursday pushed for an independent probe into a migrant boat tragedy off Greece in which hundreds of people are believed to have died, calling an internal investigation by Athens inadequate.

Andy Murray was within touching distance of the Wimbledon third round on Thursday when he opened up a two sets to one lead over world number five Stefanos Tsitsipas while Stan Wawrinka set up a tasty clash with Novak Djokovic.

The mind-blowing growth of artificial intelligence poses many questions that have no answers yet, the United Nations admitted Thursday at its AI summit, attended by some exceptionally life-like humanoid robots.

A French policeman who sparked riots last week after killing a teenager has denied threatening to shoot the boy in the head before opening fire, legal documents seen by AFP showed on Thursday.

Threads, Mark Zuckerberg's Instagram-based challenge to dethrone Elon Musk's troubled Twitter, has already secured tens of millions of downloads, but it remains to be seen whether this Twitter rival will be a winning one.

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen begins a full day of meetings in Beijing on Friday, with strained US-China ties, American businesses' concerns and the global economic outlook on her agenda.

South Africa's crippling blackouts have shrunk from up to 12 hours a day to just over two hours daily in recent weeks, after inflicting a massive hit on the economy.

Taiwan's chip giant TSMC said Thursday it did not expect any direct effect on production from China's latest export controls on two rare metals essential for making semiconductors.

The world saw its hottest June on record last month, the EU's climate monitoring service said Thursday, as climate change and the El Nino weather pattern looked likely to drive another scorching northern summer.