AFP news

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.

Clothes, sofas and kitchen furniture still lie strewn around Nadiya Yefremova's garden a month after her home was flooded by the destruction of the Kakhovka dam in southern Ukraine.

At least eight people, including five women and two children, died on Wednesday in a new attack in DR Congo's troubled east, local people told AFP on Wednesday.

As many as 13,000 tonnes of cobalt powder are thought to be hoarded in the Chinese-owned Tenke Fungurume mine -- equivalent to seven percent of the world's production last year.

Russian investigators on Wednesday said they had launched a criminal investigation after award-winning journalist Elena Milashina was badly beaten in Chechnya.

UN observers appealed on Wednesday for greater access to Europe's largest nuclear plant, after Moscow and Kyiv traded accusations over a possible "catastrophic" act of sabotage at the Russian-controlled facility in Ukraine.

Facebook behemoth Meta officially launched Threads, its text-based rival to Twitter, on Wednesday, with more than five million sign-ups in the first few hours -- but its release in Europe has been delayed over data privacy concerns.

Chinese companies investing in minerals used in the renewable energy industry have been accused of more than 100 human rights and environmental abuses around the world since 2021, according to a report released on Thursday.

Award-winning Russian investigative journalist Elena Milashina, who was badly beaten in the restive republic of Chechnya, is in a "difficult" condition in a Moscow hospital, her editor told AFP Wednesday.

Relief swept Senegal and its foreign allies on Tuesday after President Macky Sall said he would not seek a contested third term in office, a move that defused fears of further deadly protests.

Joseph Guret surveyed the charred remains of his tobacco shop outside Paris, one of the hundreds of businesses ransacked in riots that have caused an estimated one billion euros across France.

Humanity's failure to draw down planet-heating carbon dioxide emissions -- 41 billion tonnes in 2022 -- has thrust once-marginal options for capping or reducing CO2 in the atmosphere to centre stage in climate policy and investment.

The risks of harvest failures in multiple global breadbaskets have been underestimated, according to a study Tuesday that researchers said should be a "wake up call" about the threat climate change poses to our food systems.

Moscow said Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian territory would "not be possible" without US and NATO help, escalating its rhetoric after reporting it had downed five drones near the capital on Tuesday.

The United Nations on Tuesday warned the world to prepare for the effects of El Nino, saying the weather phenomenon which triggers higher global temperatures is set to persist throughout 2023.

Inside Kyiv's St Michael's cathedral, mourners gathered Tuesday to bid farewell to Ukrainian writer Victoria Amelina, who died of her wounds suffered in a Russian missile strike on a restaurant.

South Sudan's leader Salva Kiir on Tuesday pledged that delayed elections set for next year would go ahead as planned and that he would run for president.

Carlos Alcaraz prepared to launch his Wimbledon campaign on Tuesday as two-time champion Andy Murray aimed to roll back the years on a damp day at the All England Club.

The European Commission said Tuesday it was "concerned" about China's decision to impose export controls on two rare metals vital for making semiconductors amid an escalating tech battle between Washington and Beijing.

Elon Musk spent the weekend further alienating Twitter users with more drastic changes to the social media giant, and he is facing a new challenge as tech nemesis Mark Zuckerberg prepares to launch a rival app this week.

China's Xi Jinping urged the leaders of Russia, Iran and other Shanghai alliance states on Tuesday to boost ties and resist sanctions, as Vladimir Putin thanked the bloc for support during a failed rebellion.

French President Emmanuel Macron was on Tuesday to meet with hundreds of French officials to begin exploring the "deeper reasons" for the country's plunge into riots after the killing of a teenager at a traffic stop.

NATO secretary general Jens Stoltenberg had already lined up a job as head of the central bank in his native Norway when Russia's invasion of Ukraine pushed allies last year to ask him to stay on.

Overnight violence in French cities has halved in 24 hours, the interior ministry said Tuesday, a week after riots erupted over the police killing of a teenager at a traffic stop.

The United Nations is convening this week a global gathering to try to map out the frontiers of artificial intelligence and to harness its potential for empowering humanity.