WORLD

Venezuela is at a crossroads, with the government of strongman Nicolas Maduro doubling down on his disputed reelection victory and the opposition vowing to resist "to the end."

The US jobs market was probably cooler than expected in the year through March, Labor Department data showed Wednesday, signaling weaker but still-positive growth.

President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday that Russia's economic and trade links with China are "yielding results" as he welcomed Chinese Premier Li Qiang to the Kremlin.

Ukrainian civilians on Wednesday fled areas close to the frontline as Russian troops steadily seized more territory across the eastern Donetsk region.

Top US diplomat Antony Blinken headed home on Wednesday after failing to secure a Gaza ceasefire, warning both Israel and Hamas his plan may be the last chance to avert a broader war.

The patient landed in Bangkok on August 14 and was sent to hospital with mpox symptoms the following morning, said Thongchai Keeratihattayakorn, head of the kingdom's Department of Disease Control.

A young Israeli woman who became emblematic of the 251 hostages seized by Hamas on October 7 said Wednesday that she thought every night in captivity would be her last, calling her survival a "miracle".

Bangladeshi student Omar Faruq believes the future of his country is bright but all he can see is darkness, after police trying to crush a student-led revolution blinded him with rubber pellets.

Saving lives was the childhood dream for 28-year-old Indian doctor Radhika, but after the brutal rape and murder of a colleague her own safety has increasingly become a top concern.

Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te warned Wednesday that China's "growing authoritarianism will not stop with" the island and urged democratic countries to unite to curb its expansion.

Top US diplomat Antony Blinken appealed Tuesday to Hamas urgently to accept a ceasefire plan to ease suffering in Gaza but also entered a public spat with Israel as he capped a new round of shuttle diplomacy.

Lebanon's health ministry said early Wednesday that Israeli strikes in the country's east killed one person and wounded 20 others, hours after it said four people were killed in the south.

Lebanon's health ministry said early Wednesday that Israeli strikes in the country's east killed one person, just over a day after similar strikes in the area and hours after four died in the south.

Burundi's President President Evariste Ndayishimiye continues to rule with an unrelenting "wave of repression" despite hopes of change when he took office four years ago, Amnesty International said Wednesday.

In war-ravaged Gaza, death appears to be the "only certainty" for 2.4 million Palestinians with no way to escape Israel's relentless bombardment, a UN official said Tuesday, recounting the growing desperation across the territory.

The UN special rapporteur on the human rights situation in Afghanistan has been barred from entering the country, a diplomatic source told AFP on Tuesday.

Venezuela's parliament, controlled by members loyal to strongman President Nicolas Maduro, on Tuesday delayed debate on a law against "fascism" seen by detractors as a means of cracking down on political opponents.

It was still dark when a storm hit the Sicilian port of Porticello early Monday, and within minutes a superyacht had disappeared, taking many of those on board with it.

Some are wounded, most are very young and all want to go home. The young man, who wore checked trousers and plastic slippers, said his hope was "to be exchanged and go back home -- back home to my family".

India's Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered a national task force to examine how to bolster security for healthcare workers after the "horrific" rape and murder of a doctor sparked medical strikes and furious protests.

King Charles III on Tuesday visited the town in northwest England where a devastating knife attack that killed three young girls sparked nationwide anti-immigration riots.

Ukraine's parliament on Tuesday voted to ban the Russia-linked Ukrainian Orthodox Church, as Kyiv cuts religious, social and institutional ties with bodies it considers aligned with Moscow.

In a dingy New Delhi pedestrian subway, patients waiting for treatment at nearby hospitals line the ground as queues grow with Indian doctors protesting the rape and murder of a colleague.

Ukraine's military incursion into Russia, a first in the two-year-old war, has handed Kyiv the initiative on the battlefield, but its outcome remains highly uncertain, analysts say.

Blinken, on his ninth visit to the Middle East since the Palestinian militant group's October 7 attack triggered the war with Israel, flew to El Alamein, the Mediterranean city famous for a World War II battle, and began talks with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi at his summer palace.

Taiwan conducted missile drills simulating the interception of enemy fighters and munitions at a sensitive test site Tuesday, as the island seeks to step up "combat effectiveness" against an increasingly assertive China.

Kenyan police launched a major manhunt on Tuesday after a man they claim has confessed to murdering and dismembering 42 women escaped from a Nairobi police cell, along with a dozen other detainees.

A North Korean defected to the South by walking across the heavily fortified border that separates the peninsula, Seoul's military said Tuesday.

Top US diplomat Antony Blinken was due to travel to Egypt on Tuesday for talks on a Gaza ceasefire after saying Israel had accepted a US "bridging proposal" for a deal and urging Hamas to do the same.