Reuters

Streets filled with rubble and ransacked shops greeted residents of some Dakar neighbourhoods on Saturday - fallout from clashes between anti-government protesters and police that have gripped Senegal in recent days.

Pope Francis will make an Aug. 31-Sept. 4 trip to Mongolia, one of the most far-flung places he has ever visited and which has only about 1,300 Catholics but is strategically significant for the Roman Catholic Church because of its proximity to China.

Tayyip Erdogan was set to be sworn in as Turkey's president on Saturday after winning re-election last weekend and will later name his cabinet, which is expected to signal a change to his unorthodox economic programme.

The death toll from the collision of two Indian passenger trains in Odisha state has surged to 288 and more than 850 are injured, a state government official told AFP on Saturday, making the rail accident the country's deadliest in more than two decades.

A Taiwan theatre is showcasing a Hong Kong play about Tiananmen Square to mark the 34th anniversary of the crackdown in Beijing, saying almost as much about shrinking freedoms in the former British colony as it does about the 1989 bloodshed.

After a rocky start to a week of negotiations, around 170 countries agreed to develop a first draft by November of what could become the first global treaty to curb plastic pollution by the end of next year.

One of Italy's most remarkable archaeological finds in decades goes on show this month - Etruscan and Roman statues pulled from the mud in Tuscany thanks in part to the intuition of a retired garbage man.

At least 200 people were killed and 900 injured when two passenger trains collided in Odisha on Friday, according to government officials in the eastern Indian state, in one of India's worst rail accidents in years.

CIA director William Burns visited China last month for talks with Chinese counterparts, two U.S. officials said on Friday as Washington seeks to boost communications with Beijing.

A coastal city in Quebec ordered some 10,000 residents to evacuate homes on Friday as wildfires spread in eastern Canada and stretched firefighting resources already tackling blazes across the country.

Brief smiles and handshakes by U.S. and Chinese military leaders at a luxury hotel in Singapore on Friday belie a deep freeze in communications between the two armed forces that is becoming a growing worry at the Pentagon.

With two high-level visits in less than a month, the United States is hoping to steady ties with Saudi Arabia after several years of disagreement and deepening mistrust.

Army troops were deployed to parts of the Senegalese capital Dakar on Friday as the city braced for more unrest after a jail sentence for opposition leader Ousmane Sonko sparked one of the deadliest days of violence in the country's recent memory.

U.S. congressional leaders on Friday invited Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to address a joint meeting of the House of Representatives and Senate on June 22, one of the highest honors Washington affords to foreign dignitaries.

Ukraine would be ready to continue exporting grain across the Black Sea as part of a "plan B" without Russian backing if Moscow pulls the plug on the current grain export deal and it collapses, Ukraine's farm minister said on Friday.

Banga on Thursday met with Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, who urged him to "get the most out of the bank's balance sheet," the Treasury said.

Aid workers in Sudan say fierce fighting, rampant looting and reams of red tape are hampering efforts to deliver vital humanitarian supplies to the millions of people who now rely on a relief effort since a conflict erupted in mid-April.

A senior NATO official on Friday urged Beijing to be more open about its accelerating nuclear weapons build-up, saying that as a global power, China had a responsibility to improve transparency.

Denmark's Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen will meet U.S.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Friday warned against any peace initiatives that could help legitimize Russia's seizure of Ukrainian territory, saying a "just and durable" peace effort should address accountability and reconstruction.

Alexei Navalny, Russia's most famous opposition leader, on Friday shared letters showing how he has poked fun at prison authorities for several months with a host of bizarre requests for a kimono, a balalaika, a beetle and even to keep a kangaroo.

Senior officials from over a dozen countries including Saudi Arabia and Iran were in talks on closer links with the BRICS bloc of major emerging economies on Friday as it met to deepen ties and position itself as a counterweight to the West.

Britain supports adding Ukraine to NATO and "that path is open" to them, although political realities may slow the process, Defence Minister Ben Wallace said on Friday on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue security meetings in Singapore.

Parts of Japan were slammed by torrential rain on Friday as Tropical Storm Mawar neared, with authorities advising more than a million people to evacuate, many flights and other transport cancelled and power outages in thousands of homes.

The Chinese envoy who toured European capitals last month seeking to promote Ukraine peace talks said on Friday that Beijing is considering another mission, after acknowledging that his trip may not produce immediate results.

Thailand's election-winning Move Forward party is committed to increasing welfare spending and the minimum wage while promoting growth by opening up the economy to competition and cutting corruption, its finance minister-designate said.

As restrictions in Hong Kong have snuffed out what were once the largest vigils marking the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, cities like London, New York, Berlin and Taipei are left carrying the candle to commemorate the June 4 anniversary.

The United States on Friday will offer to abide by the nuclear weapons limits set in the New START treaty until its 2026 expiration if Russia does the same, in order to bolster global security, two senior administration officials said.

Heatwaves tormenting parts of southern and eastern China are set to persist through June, putting power grids under strain as air conditioners are turned on full blast at homes, offices and factories in mega-cities like Shanghai and Shenzhen.