BUSINESS

Iranians voted on Friday in elections for parliament and a key clerical body, amid fears of a low turnout and with conservatives expected to tighten their grip on power.

The WTO's 13th ministerial conference (MC13) in Abu Dhabi was initially scheduled to wrap up on Thursday. But it was extended beyond its scheduled deadline three times amid rifts between the body's 164 members.

The statement did not provide a reason for the unexpected move, just saying it wanted to "wish him all the best for the forthcoming new chapter in his life."

It was a busy morning at London's Southwark train station and the pressure was on -- but not just for the city's commuters.

In a storyline improbable enough for Hollywood, a vegan chocolatier in a remote Scottish port town has made the confectionery to be given to silver screen icons at next month's Oscars.

Australia seized control of the opening Test Friday after a miserable day for New Zealand left the hosts 217 runs adrift in Wellington and with a mountain to climb to stay in the match.

Extending a global retreat from news content, Meta said it would scrap the Facebook News tab in Australia and would not renew deals with news publishers worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

The confirmation of the democratic island's latest major data leak followed a report by local news channel TVBS on the hack of telecom giant Chunghwa Telecom.

Asian markets were largely higher on Friday following Wall Street gains driven by tech rallies and key US inflation data that met investors' expectations.

"I don't even know when I was born," said May-Britt Koed, a Copenhagen restaurant owner and one of the quarter of a million South Korean babies sent abroad for adoption since the 1950s.

China's top officials hold an annual gathering next week, offering a rare window into the ruling Communist Party's thinking as it tightens its grip in the face of dire economic headwinds.

The victims and families affected by the 2019 New Zealand volcano disaster, which claimed 22 lives, were awarded total damages of NZ$10 million (US$6 million) on Friday.

The emergence of AI bots like OpenAI's ChatGPT and Google's Bard has fueled a massive rise in share prices of chip-making juggernaut Nvidia, with its skyrocketing stock now making it the world's fourth biggest company by market capitalization.

Former Canadian prime minister Brian Mulroney, who made his political mark in the 1980s with the signing of a ground-breaking free trade agreement with the United States that later expanded to include Mexico, died Thursday.

Former Canadian prime minister Brian Mulroney, who made his political mark in the 1980s with the signing of a ground-breaking free trade agreement with the United States that later expanded to include Mexico, died Thursday.

Oprah Winfrey's announcement that she is leaving the board of WeightWatchers sent the company's shares tumbling Thursday -- the latest sign of trouble for the brand as it struggles to compete with new weight-loss drugs.

Italian filmmaker Paolo Taviani, whose gritty biopic "Padre Padrone" won the top Cannes Film Festival prize, has died aged 92, Rome mayor Roberto Gualtieri said Thursday.

Their mission around the Moon is not expected until September 2025 at the earliest, but the four astronauts on NASA's Artemis II mission are already preparing for their splashdown return.

Moldovans dismissed talk of tensions on Thursday, a day after pro-Russian rebel officials in the country's breakaway region of Transnistria appealed to Russia for "protection".

Despite suffering a significant sales loss of over $1 billion due to the Bud Light boycott, AB InBev still experienced profit growth.

US President Joe Biden announced an investigation Thursday into the national security risks posed by Chinese tech in cars, warning they could be used to collect sensitive data.

The US central bank's favored measure of inflation edged lower on an annual basis in January, government data showed Thursday, but a metric stripping out volatile food and energy prices jumped month-over-month.

Spain's top court said on Thursday it was opening an investigation into Catalan separatist leader Carles Puigdemont on "terrorism" charges over protests linked to Catalonia's failed 2017 independence bid.

Europe's aviation industry extended a bounceback from the Covid pandemic on Thursday, as British Airways owner IAG and Franco-Dutch rival Air France-KLM posted bumper 2023 profits.

Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg met South Korea's President Yoon Suk Yeol in Seoul Thursday and discussed cooperation on AI and ways to prevent fake news circulation ahead of key elections, Yoon's office said.

Indigenous Cambodians living in a protected forest say a carbon credit scheme has led to the destruction of their crops and huts, as a two-year Human Rights Watch investigation released Thursday documented forced evictions and criminal charges.

Consumer groups from eight EU countries lodged complaints on Thursday against Meta, accusing the US company of illegally processing user data and using its "pay or consent" system as a "smokescreen" for privacy breaches.

Asian shares mostly fell on Thursday tracking US losses ahead of the release of crucial inflation data later in the day that will help chart the Fed's rate cut timeline.

Pressed by parents to pose in videos with make-up and skincare products, pre-teen girls dubbed "Sephora Kids" have taken TikTok by storm in a trend that some specialists brand a danger to children's mental and physical health.