WORLD

Yannick Bestaven already knows what it feels like to win the Vendee Globe but the 51-year-old Frenchman cannot resist the call of the solo, non-stop round the world yacht race, which sets off from Les Sables-d'Olonne on the Atlantic coast on Sunday.

For King Faisal, a 20-year-old winger from Ghana, the invitation to move to Brazil to play football is easily summed up: "It was a dream."

NATO chief Mark Rutte said Thursday that North Korea's involvement in Russia's war against Ukraine posed a direct threat to the United States, in a first effort to convince Donald Trump to keep backing Kyiv.

Makoto Uchida, the CEO of Nissan, offered to take a 50 percent pay cut for himself, as his company's shares continued to plummet.

More than a week after surging torrents of muddy water ravaged Spain, flooded cemeteries are making dignified burials for victims impossible and compounding the pain of bereaved survivors.

The rial, Iran's currency, sank to a historic low of 703,000 to one U.S. dollar after Donald Trump's re-election win.

German big business groups demanded almost in unison Thursday that embattled Chancellor Olaf Scholz call elections soon to restore political stability in Europe's stuttering top economy.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Thursday said it would be "suicidal" for Europe to offer the Kremlin concessions to halt its invasion of Ukraine, after Moscow demanded the West enter direct talks on ending the war.

The Lebanese army said an Israeli strike on a vehicle near a checkpoint in the southern city of Sidon on Thursday killed three people and wounded troops and UN peacekeepers.

Hurricane Rafael, which slammed into the communist island on Wednesday, left 10 million people in the dark

Unusual cross-party support is swelling in France behind a draft law meant to halt a looming "mexicanisation" of the country by a burgeoning drug trade, defying an otherwise riven political landscape.

A US military judge has reinstated plea agreements for 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and two other defendants, an official said Thursday, three months after the deals were scrapped by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.

The French parliament on Thursday approved a bill aimed at tightening the regulation of tourist accommodation such as Airbnb to combat the shortage of affordable housing.

The bill -- the result of a compromise between the two houses of French parliament -- had been unanimously approved by the upper house Senate on Tuesday.

Mauritius, one of Africa's richest countries and a stable democracy in a sometimes volatile neighbourhood, is holding a legislative election on Sunday.

Soldiers and police were patrolling Mozambique's capital Maputo early Thursday ahead of a planned protest against election results seen by the opposition as fraudulent, AFP reporters said.

Ireland meet New Zealand on Friday at Lansdowne Road in a rematch of last year's epic Rugby World Cup quarter-final which dashed Irish dreams of lifting the trophy.

In his stone house perched on a hill in northern Ethiopia, Amanuel Hiluf puts on his protective suit, carefully adjusting the hood and gloves.

European leaders converge on Budapest Thursday for two days of high-level talks that will seek to rise to the challenges posed by Donald Trump's return to the White House -- but also risk exposing the continent's fault lines.

US president-elect Donald Trump says "tariff" is the most beautiful word in the dictionary -- and the Republican's second term promises sweeping measures on all $3 trillion worth of US imported goods.

Australian breakdancer Rachael "Raygun" Gunn has announced her retirement from competition, citing a "really upsetting" backlash following her performance at the Paris Olympics.

Supporters of former Bolivian president Evo Morales, who have been blocking roads in the center of the country for three weeks in a standoff with the government, on Wednesday announced a 72-hour "humanitarian" pause.

Germany's Chancellor Olaf Scholz has been dubbed the "Scholzomat" for a dry personal style bordering on the robotic, but also hailed as a safe pair of hands leading a country that values stability.

Hurricane Rafael knocked out power to all of Cuba on Wednesday as it made landfall on the island still reeling from a recent blackout and a previous major storm, the national power company said.

Opium cultivation rose by 19 percent in Afghanistan this year, the UN reported Wednesday, despite a Taliban government ban that almost eradicated the crop.

As of 2023, Japan reported over 9 million empty houses, according to government data, with some selling for less than $10,000. This unusual supply surplus is drawing in foreign buyers intrigued by the opportunity for affordable property in a high-cost housing world.

Young volunteers have spearheaded a humanitarian campaign for victims of Spain's deadliest floods in decades, smashing stereotypes of an apathetic and feeble "snowflake generation" interested in nothing other than themselves.

From far-right billionaire provocateur Elon Musk to young firebrand J.D. Vance and vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr, a new Trump administration is set to bring a contrarian cast of characters into the White House.

The Kremlin has said it will judge Donald Trump, who has vowed to swiftly end the Ukraine conflict, on his "actions" in office, as many in the West fear his second term could spell disaster for Kyiv.