WORLD

Two rival gang leaders signed a truce to end armed conflict in Haiti's largest shantytown, a community leader said Thursday.

The Saint Hilarion complex, one of the oldest monasteries in the Middle East, has been put on the UNESCO list of World Heritage sites in danger due to the war in Gaza, the body said Friday.

Arson attacks scrambled France's high-speed rail network for tens of thousands of passengers on Friday, after what officials called premeditated acts of "sabotage" just hours before the Paris Olympics opened.

Seoul and Washington's air forces started around three weeks of joint drills Tuesday in Suwon, south of Seoul, involving US F/A-18 and F-35B combat aircraft.

The five had previously been announced dead, and the military and an Israeli campaign group, the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, said that they all had been killed by Palestinian militants on the day of the attack.

The strongest typhoon to hit Taiwan in eight years killed three people and flooded parts of the island's second-biggest city on Thursday, while rescuers searched for nine sailors missing after their cargo ship sank in the storm.

Netanyahu will also meet Vice President Kamala Harris -- the likely new Democratic presidential nominee -- at the White House on Thursday, one day after he gave a speech to the US Congress vowing "total victory" against Hamas.

Fighting has rocked the town of Lashio, home to the military's northeastern command, since July 3 when an alliance of ethnic armed groups renewed an offensive against junta troops.

President Vladimir Putin held talks with Syrian counterpart Bashar al-Assad in Moscow amid calls for Russian mediation to cool tensions between Turkey and Syria.

The death toll from landslides in a remote region of southern Ethiopia has risen to 257, the United Nations said Thursday, warning that the number of victims could soar to up to 500.

Last week's violence killed at least 193 people including several police officers, according to an AFP count of victims reported by police and hospitals, in one of the biggest upheavals of Hasina's 15-year tenure.

It is the first time the South Korean leader's office in downtown Seoul, which is protected by scores of soldiers and a no-fly zone, has been directly hit by any of the thousands of trash-carrying balloons launched by Pyongyang since May.

Washington has been increasingly critical of the mounting toll on civilians from more than nine months of war in the narrow coastal territory, while protests in Israel by families of hostages taken by Hamas are also causing headaches for Netanyahu at home.

With the world's eyes already on a looming clash between Vice President Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, Biden will insist in his address to the nation that he still has work to do despite his historic decision to bow out.

Typhoon Gaemi, packing sustained wind speeds of 190 kilometers (118 miles) per hour, also affected Japan and the Philippines -- which announced government offices would close for the day.

In the densely populated capital, rescuers were deployed across the city to help evacuate people from low-lying homes after downpours turned streets into rivers, trapping vehicles.

Nepal has a woeful track record on aviation safety and the Himalayan republic has seen a spate of deadly light plane and helicopter crashes over the decades.

China presents itself as a neutral party in the war and says it is not sending lethal assistance to either side, unlike the United States and other Western nations.

The agreement, signed by more than a dozen Palestinian factions on Tuesday, aims to find common ground for future Palestinian political institutions, which are currently divided between the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority in the occupied West Bank and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Humanitarian agencies were also scrambling to rush emergency relief aid to the stricken community after the deadliest such incident recorded in Ethiopia, a country highly vulnerable to climate-related disasters.

On a 10-day trip that will see him visit Vietnam, Laos, Japan, the Philippines, Singapore and Mongolia, Blinken will carry a message of US commitment to its allies in the region, said Daniel Kritenbrink, a senior US State Department official.

China presents itself as a neutral party in the war and says it is not sending lethal assistance to either side, unlike the United States and other Western nations.

Foreign Minister Israel Katz insisted that "Hamas rule will be crushed" and accused Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, whose Fatah faction signed the deal, of embracing the group whose October 7 attacks triggered the war.

India's government will spend $24 billion on employment and training, it said Tuesday, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi looks to address uneven economic growth and mollify disgruntled voters after a surprising election setback last month.

Part of a Mexican-owned global chain, KidZania typically offers young children the chance to play at dozens of different jobs, from firefighter to dentist, in giant indoor centers, including one in Seoul that receives hundreds of thousands of visitors a year.

Kobayashi Pharmaceutical is at the center of a health scare linked to its over-the-counter tablets containing red yeast rice, which is fermented with a mould culture.

At least 173 people have died, including several police officers, according to a separate AFP count of victims reported by police and hospitals.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who hosted senior Hamas official Musa Abu Marzuk, Fatah envoy Mahmud al-Aloul and emissaries from 12 other Palestinian groups, said they had agreed to set up an "interim national reconciliation government" to govern post-war Gaza.

After winning support from Democratic party heavyweights, Kamala Harris will test her potential candidacy with voters Tuesday at a campaign rally in Wisconsin, a critical "swing state" for her likely face-off with Donald Trump.