BUSINESS

Smoke billows from chimneys as factories churn in South Korea's steelmaking heartland, now under threat from Washington's swingeing new tariffs on the port city's largest export.

With Coldplay and Ed Sheeran among the superstars who have played to packed-out crowds in India recently, there is increasing talk that the world's most populous nation could soon become a mainstay of the global touring schedule.

When Germans go to vote in one week's time, after a polarising election campaign overshadowed by a far-right surge, they are expected to hand the chancellery to conservative Friedrich Merz.

Arsenal ignored their injury woes to close the gap on Premier League leaders Liverpool as Mikel Merino inspired a 2-0 win against Leicester, while Omar Marmoush's hat-trick fired Manchester City's 4-0 rout of top four rivals Newcastle on Saturday.

Germany's conservative election frontrunner Friedrich Merz pledged a stronger role for Berlin in the EU and muscular support for Ukraine as he outlined his foreign policy vision at the Munich Security Conference.

A bus carrying a group of Palestinian prisoners released Saturday by Israel under the Gaza ceasefire deal arrived to a cheering crowd in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah, according to an AFP journalist.

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun vowed to punish the perpetrators of an attack on a United Nations peacekeeping convoy, with authorities set to hold an emergency meeting on Saturday.

Workers at Japan's crippled Fukushima nuclear plant have started dismantling water storage tanks to free up space for tonnes of nuclear debris, 14 years after the facility was hit by a devastating tsunami.

The escalating conflict in Democratic Republic of Congo will dominate an African Union summit opening Saturday, with the DRC president absent after Rwandan-backed forces seized a second major city on his territory.

Gaza militants are due to release three Israeli hostages on Saturday in exchange for 369 Palestinians in Israeli custody, the sixth swap of a truce that came close to collapse this week.

A UN peacekeeping force vehicle in Lebanon was torched Friday as supporters of militant group Hezbollah blocked the road to Beirut airport in protest, with UNIFIL reporting one commander wounded in the incident.

An Argentine court has issued arrest warrants for the head of Myanmar's military junta and former officials including Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi over alleged "genocide and crimes against humanity" targeting the Rohingya minority group.

Faulty instruments and communication problems may have caused a passenger jet and army helicopter to collide in the worst US air disaster in two decades, flight safety investigators said Friday.

US Vice-President JD Vance Friday urged Germany's mainstream political parties to drop resistance to cooperating with the far right, hours after Berlin rejected American "meddling" ahead of its election.

Turkey has hit German sporting equipment giant Adidas with a fine of more than $15,000 for failing to inform customers that one of its flagship footwear models contained pigskin.

M23 fighters on Friday seized the airport serving Bukavu in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, just as African leaders gathered for crisis talks on the escalating crisis.

The motive behind Sweden's deadliest mass shooting may never be known but the fact that almost all of the victims had foreign backgrounds has sparked concern among the country's immigrants.

Alibaba shares soared by more than six percent on Friday following reports that Chinese President Xi Jinping was poised to meet with the tech juggernaut's co-founder Jack Ma. Alibaba, which has already surged more than 40 percent in 2025, piled on 6.3 percent after also being given an extra leg-up Thursday when its chairman said it would supply AI technology to power Apple's iPhones in China.

Bangladeshi high schooler Laiba is being educated for the future, but what she learns has been determined by the latest chapter in her country's battle over its past.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order extending the deadline for ByteDance to divest TikTok's U.S. operations by 75 days.

Taiwan will boost investment in the United States and on its own defences, President Lai Ching-te said Friday, as Taipei seeks to head off US President Donald Trump's threats of tariffs on its semiconductor chips.

Hamas was expected Friday to name three hostages it will release this weekend as part of a planned exchange for Palestinian prisoners, local media said, after days of uncertainty in which Israel threatened to scrap a nearly month-old Gaza ceasefire deal.

Asian markets mostly rose Friday in line with a rally on Wall Street as traders were buoyed by news that Donald Trump's latest, sweeping reciprocal tariffs would not likely be implemented until April, giving time for negotiations.

One victim was visiting Rio de Janeiro's iconic Christ the Redeemer statue.

Denny's is shutting down even more locations than initially planned, citing financial struggles and shifting market conditions.

While Reddit's latest earnings report showed strong financial growth, the stock took a dip after concerns over a decline in traffic due to Google's algorithm changes were made public.

Swedish-Lebanese filmmaker-turned-game-developer Josef Fares is on a mission to put storytelling first in video games, slamming money-driven designs for stifling creativity.

Jeff Bezos's rocket company Blue Origin is laying off around 10 percent of its workforce following a period of rapid expansion, the firm's chief executive told staff on Thursday.

A run of new-release flops and the delay of the latest "Assassin's Creed" instalment sent revenue at French games giant Ubisoft plunging in its third quarter, the company reported Thursday as it continues to weigh its future.