AFP News

Taiwan said its military was on high alert as Chinese warships sailed near the island on Monday, preparing for a strong response from China to President Lai Ching-te's stopovers in the United States.

Squid Game is back. "Watching 'Squid Game' will not come across as something that is particularly detached from how we view the world." cdl/ceb/pdw

Billie Fusto is not after a fat pay cheque: he is training to be an archivist and wants nothing more than "a quiet life" at home in Italy.

The Kenyan parliament was ablaze, protesters running through the streets, police firing into the crowds.

UK hereditary lawmaker Richard Fletcher-Vane, better known as Lord Inglewood, will soon no longer commute the few hundred miles from his country house in northwest England to the House of Lords in London -- and he is not happy about it.

Australian police said on Monday they are hunting for three suspects over an arson attack on a Melbourne synagogue, which has been designated as a terrorist act.

This year is "effectively certain" to be the hottest on record and the first above a critical threshold to protect the planet from dangerously overheating, Europe's climate monitor said Monday.

US President Joe Biden said Assad should be "held accountable" but called the nation's political upheaval a "historic opportunity" for Syrians to rebuild their country.

South Korean stocks fell more than one percent Monday as the country was racked with political uncertainty after President Yoon Suk Yeol averted impeachment following his brief imposition of martial law last week.

Survivors of the US atomic bombings of Japan will receive the Nobel Peace Prize on Tuesday but, after years of anti-nuclear campaigning and showing the world their scars, they still retain the painful memories of the discrimination they have faced.

The European Central Bank is expected to cut interest rates again this week amid a darkening outlook, with political turbulence in the eurozone's two biggest economies adding to the troubled picture.

Halfway through marathon climate change hearings at the world's top court, battle lines are being drawn between developed countries urging judges to stick to current legal obligations and vulnerable nations pleading for more.

No elves, no dwarves, and not a hobbit in sight: "The Lord of the Rings" returns to the big screen this month with a new Japanese anime-style movie about the warring men of J.R.R. Tolkien's fictional universe.

Roaming the opulent Damascus home of ousted Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, Abu Omar felt a sense of giddy defiance being in the residence of the man he said had long oppressed him.

Dutch authorities said on Sunday they believed an explosion and inferno that caused an apartment block to collapse killing at least five people was a criminal act.

Brandishing the flag of the opposition, dozens of Syrian refugees in Iraq's Kurdistan region on Sunday celebrated the fall of Bashar al-Assad, dubbing the Syrian president's fall a victory for the "revolution".

Reda al-Khedr was only five when his mother escaped the siege of Homs in 2014.

Donald Trump doubled down Sunday on hard-line campaign pledges to impose trade tariffs and carry out mass deportations, while dangling the idea that the United States could withdraw from NATO. In his first formal television interview -- and just six weeks before he takes office -- Trump again signaled that US support for Ukraine will scale back, saying he will "probably" cut the aid helping Kyiv repel the Russian invasion.

Hundreds of Syrians celebrated the fall of long-time ruler Bashar al-Assad in joyous scenes on Sunday outside the Fatih Mosque in central Istanbul, one of the focal points for their 500,000-strong Syrian community in the Turkish city.

Former president John Mahama, Ghana's main opposition leader, tried twice before to win back the country top post.

Islamist-led rebels took Damascus on Sunday after a lightning offensive, sending President Bashar al-Assad fleeing and ending five decades of Baath party rule in Syria.

Ghana's ruling New Patriotic Party candidate, Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia, on Sunday conceded defeat in the country's presidential election after failing to shake off widespread frustration over the struggling economy.

Ghana's opposition on Sunday claimed provisional results showed its candidate John Mahama winning the weekend presidential election, though electoral authorities said they were still collating the official tallies.

US president-elect Donald Trump said on Sunday that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is keen on a "deal" to end the war with Russia, after the pair met in Paris to discuss the future of the conflict.

Romanians on Sunday protested outside a voting station near Bucharest together with far-right presidential frontrunner Calin Georgescu after a top court scrapped the scheduled run-off vote after allegations of Russian interference.

Serbian performance artist Marina Abramovic, known for works that push her body and her audience to extreme limits, is these days inviting people to decompress by taking a break from digital overload.

Newly restored Notre Dame cathedral is set to hold its first service for the public on Sunday after a historic re-opening ceremony that saw firefighters, builders and artists celebrated for their work saving the 12th-century masterpiece.

They come with big budgets, are wrapped in sentimentality and boost company revenues -- Britain's latest instalment of eagerly awaited Christmas television advertisements has a nation tuned in.

China's retaliatory export controls could take a toll on the growing US clean energy sector and its defense industry, analysts say, as a trade tussle escalates between the world's two biggest economies.