WORLD

The Philippines will "stand our ground" in a dispute with Beijing over the South China Sea, a top security official said Friday, eight years after an international ruling against China in the territorial contest.

The $230-million military pier has repeatedly been detached from the shore because of weather conditions since its initial installation in mid-May. The project also faced issues with the distribution of assistance due to conditions onshore.

The United States foiled a Russian plot earlier this year to assassinate the chief executive of a major German arms maker supplying weaponry to Ukraine, CNN reported on Thursday.

Colombia's president on Thursday called for international help to slash the cost of servicing the country's debt in order to support its fledgling peace process, which he claimed would help "put an end to cocaine" globally.

President Joe Biden called his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky, "President Putin," but quickly corrected himself, and Zelensky promptly made light of the gaffe, saying, "I am better than Putin." But the momentary lapse quickly revived memories of Biden's debate two weeks earlier against Trump.

The wings of the world's tiniest birds are a near-invisible blur as they whizz around tourists visiting a private Cuban garden that has become a haven for the declining species.

On a stage inside Kabul Stadium, dozens of bodybuilders take turns flexing and posing in a bid to clinch the title of Mr Afghanistan -- albeit with their legs modestly covered to just below the knee.

With its idyllic, hotel-dotted coast, Ecuador's beach town of Salinas is the setting of a brutal war that most tourists never get to see.

In Nicosia's old town, Alexis Sunder prepares for a concert with six other young Greek and Turkish Cypriot members of a band that aims to connect the residents of the divided island.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned Thursday against conflict between NATO and Russia, telling an alliance summit aimed at bolstering Ukraine that diplomacy must also be an option.

Australian police have charged a married couple with spying for Russia, top officials said Friday, accusing them of accessing defence-related documents for Moscow.

President Joe Biden said Thursday that US mediators were making progress in reaching a Gaza ceasefire deal as he called for an end to the Israel-Hamas war.

About 52,000 years ago, the skinned hide of a Siberian woolly mammoth was exposed to conditions so frigid that it spontaneously freeze-dried, locking its DNA fragments into place.

The United States will soon permanently end its problem-plagued effort to deliver aid to Gaza via a temporary pier, US officials said on Thursday.

A leading South African judge said on Thursday that "hardly anything" will deter Israel's Gaza offensive, but Pretoria's case against Israel at the International Court of Justice remains vital to highlight the dire situation.

The Israeli military acknowledged Thursday it "failed" a kibbutz where more than 100 people died during Hamas's October 7 attacks after an internal probe found serious flaws in troops' conduct.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu demanded Thursday that Israel retain control of key Gaza territory along the border with Egypt as part of any accord to suspend the war with Hamas.

Shelley Duvall, the versatile actor known for her role in "The Shining" and working relationship with director Robert Altman, died Thursday aged 75.

Italy's Jasmine Paolini reached her first Wimbledon final with a stirring fightback to beat tearful Croatian Donna Vekic 2-6, 6-4, 7-6 (10/8) on Thursday in the longest women's semi-final at the All England Club.

Kyiv said Thursday that it had seized a foreign cargo ship and detained its captain, alleging that the vessel had illegally exported Ukrainian grain from the annexed Crimean peninsula.

Two French international rugby players on tour in Argentina were being transferred Thursday from Interpol's Buenos Aires headquarters to the city of Mendoza, where they will be questioned over alleged rape.

Defending champion Carlos Alcaraz and seven-time winner Novak Djokovic can set-up a Wimbledon final blockbuster on Friday.

The French government, under EU pressure for overspending, said Thursday it needed a total of 25 billion euros in budgetary cuts this year to keep its promise of getting deficits back under control.

A Moscow court on Thursday upheld a prison sentence against Nobel Prize-winning rights advocate Oleg Orlov, after the campaigner compared Russia's justice system to that of Nazi Germany.

No single force won Sunday's second-round vote outright, though a broad alliance of Socialists, Communists, Greens and the hard-left France Unbowed (LFI) won the most seats, with 193 in the 577-strong National Assembly.

Solemn mourners began gathering in Srebrenica on Thursday to remember the 1995 massacre of Bosnian Muslims, less two months after the UN established a memorial day to mark the genocide.

As bombs thunder in Gaza, just across the border in southern Israel truck driver Itzik waits in a barbed-wire protected parking lot for his delivery to clear inspection into the hunger-stricken territory.

Wales coach Warren Gatland Thursday demanded more discipline in the second Test against Australia with a resurgent Wallabies expected to "go up another level" in Melbourne this weekend.

Her bid to run against Russian President Vladimir Putin in a March election was rejected and she has since been branded a "foreign agent".