WORLD

US Department of Defense officials will visit Guyana next week, the South American country's vice president said Thursday, as he pledged that "all options" are on the table in its row with neighboring Venezuela.

Just a few metres of rock and earth separate Indian rescue teams from 41 workers who have been trapped inside a collapsed road tunnel for nearly two weeks, officials said Friday, adding they were optimistic of success within hours.

"Thirty years I've been in cocoa -- and this is the worst season yet," said Siaka Sylla as he contemplated an almost empty warehouse at his cooperative in Ivory Coast, the world's top producer of the bean.

Tiktoker Murja Kunya once ran afoul of sharia police in Nigeria's northwest city of Kano, where "hisbah" units enforce Islamic law that runs alongside common law.

Known as the "Dutch Trump" both for his bouffant dyed hair and firebrand rhetoric, Geert Wilders' anti-Islam, anti-immigrant and anti-EU message seems to have finally swept him to first place at the polls.

The bodies of dozens of unidentified people were buried on Wednesday in a mass grave at a cemetery in Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip.

Ambulances were on standby Thursday as Indian rescuers dug through the final metres of debris separating them from 41 workers trapped in a collapsed road tunnel for nearly two weeks.

Oil prices sank further Thursday after the shock decision by OPEC+ to delay a key policy meeting, suggesting fresh discord in the bloc.

North Korea said Thursday it would deploy new weapons and stronger armed forces to the border with the South, as Seoul's spy agency said Pyongyang had received Russian help to successfully put a military spy satellite into orbit.

New Zealand's incoming conservative prime minister said Thursday that an agreement to form a three-party coalition government had been reached, 40 days after the country went to the polls.

The World Health Organization has asked China for more data on respiratory illnesses spreading in the north of the country, urging people to take steps to reduce the risk of infection.

World leaders will face a reckoning over humanity's failure to curb climate-heating emissions and polluting fossil fuels when they meet for UN climate talks next week, as the planet swelters in likely the hottest year in human history.

A spate of thefts of rare Russian classics worth millions of euros from libraries across Eastern Europe has left a trail that points all the way to auctions in Russia.

Argentina dropped out of a race for a key UNESCO post after libertarian outsider Javier Milei's election as the South American country's president created controversy, and Brazil has now jumped into the fray.

UK leader Rishi Sunak's hopes of turning around his beleaguered Conservative party's fortunes before a likely general election next year hinge on a British economic recovery, observers say.

Many traumatised Israelis have compared the bloody Hamas onslaught of October 7 to the horrors of the Holocaust, but the head of the national memorial to the genocide disagrees.

Turkey's central bank on Thursday surprised the market with a larger-than-expected interest hike as it ramped up its fight against inflation and efforts to support the slumping lira.

Days after floodwaters swallowed her home in eastern Kenya, Fatuma Hassan Gumo waded through thigh-deep murky water to collect her only remaining possessions -- floating utensils.

After 25 years of keeping the internet strong and stable, the nonprofit ICANN -- responsible for its technical infrastructure -- is warning that increasingly polarized geopolitics could start cracking the foundations of the online world.

US fighter jets struck two targets in Iraq early on Wednesday, killing eight pro-Iran fighters in retaliation for repeated attacks on American troops, US and Iraqi sources said.

Huddled on a beach after a sleepless night, a group of around 200 Rohingya refugees sit on the sand of a western Indonesian island, cordoned off by yellow tape meant to stop them running away.

The Israel-Palestinian peace camp has long promoted dialogue against hatred and bloodshed but the passions inflamed by the deadliest Gaza war yet pose entirely new challenges for the movement.

Britain's Conservative government was set to unveil Wednesday a budget update that aims to "turbocharge" the economy and is a vital part of its efforts to woo voters as it lags in polls before next year's expected election.

Following the announcement that Gaza militant group Hamas will release at least 50 hostages as part of a deal with Israel, here is what we know about the captives.

Israeli and Palestinian families were torn between hope and fear Wednesday following an overnight deal to free hostages held by Hamas in Gaza in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.

China upgraded diplomatic ties with Uruguay on Wednesday, state media reported, as President Xi Jinping met counterpart Luis Lacalle Pou in Beijing.

The latest negotiations toward a global plastic treaty concluded late Sunday with disagreement about how the pact should work and frustration from environment groups over delays and lack of progress.

Palestinian medics evacuated 31 premature babies from Gaza City's war-torn Al-Shifa hospital Sunday in a high-risk operation, the UN said, pledging to also move patients and staff who remain there.

Donald Trump took his presidential campaign down to the border with Mexico on Sunday, doubling down on the hardline immigration rhetoric that was a hallmark of his first White House term.