WORLD

Voters went to the polls in England on Thursday for a host of crunch local elections likely to ratchet up the pressure on embattled Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.

The OECD raised its global economic growth forecast for 2024 on Thursday, driven by strong performances in the United States and emerging countries while Europe lags behind.

General Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno, proclaimed head of state by Chad's army three years ago, is the favourite to win Monday's presidential election after the junta violently repressed much of the opposition.

China-friendly former foreign minister Jeremiah Manele was elected Solomon Islands' prime minister on Thursday, defeating an opposition leader intent on curbing Beijing's reach in the Pacific nation.

Wearing a bulletproof vest and with a gun strapped to his waist, Constable Lennie McCloskey opens his folder and looks through the court orders: eleven evictions to be carried out today.

President Gustavo Petro said Wednesday that Colombia will sever diplomatic ties with Israel, whose leader he described as "genocidal" in its war in Gaza.

Five people were killed Wednesday as Russia struck Ukraine's eastern Kharkiv and Donetsk regions, local officials said.

Families of victims of Northern Ireland's "Troubles" protested in Belfast Wednesday against a new UK law that halts coroner's inquests into crimes from the era and grants immunity to past combatants.

Hundreds of people were arrested at pro-Palestinian protests on US campuses as police Wednesday extended a crackdown that included clearing out demonstrators occupying a building at Columbia University in New York.

On Day 208 of the war in Gaza, eyes are on Israel and Hamas as the world watches whether the warring sides will finally reach a long-awaited ceasefire deal -- Israel's State Comptroller will begin probing the IDF's failures during Hamas' invasion of Israel on Oct. 7 that saw the killings of more than a thousand people.

The Gaza Strip is filled with more war debris and rubble than Ukraine, the head of UN demining operations for the narrow Palestinian territory said Wednesday.

Paul Auster, the prolific American novelist whose works included "The New York Trilogy," has died of complications from lung cancer, a friend of the novelist told AFP. He was 77.

Argentine lawmakers gave approval in principle Tuesday for a swath of liberalizing reforms eyed by President Javier Milei in a rare legislative boost for his budget-slashing agenda.

When Nepal suddenly announced a ban on TikTok last year, lawyer Sunil Rajan Singh was determined to fight what he said was a government effort to hide its wrongdoings.

Le Tuan Binh keeps his Moroccan soldier father's tombstone at his village home north of Hanoi, a treasured reminder of a man whose community in Vietnam has been largely forgotten.

Madonna's long-awaited free concert on Rio de Janeiro's Copacabana Beach has upended the neighborhood, with over a million fans expected -- but for retired resident Mario Renato Borges, it's the least the singer deserves.

Pro-EU demonstrators in Georgia built barricades outside parliament on Wednesday after police used tear gas and rubber bullets against thousands of protesters rallying for a third week against a controversial "foreign influence" bill, an AFP reporter saw.