WORLD

A top US lawmaker said Wednesday he would visit Taiwan for the inauguration of President-elect Lai Ching-te, a year after his last trip to the self-governing democracy provoked anger from China.

Like her ancestors before her, Emirati astronaut Nora AlMatrooshi has spent much of her life gazing up at the stars and dreaming of flying to the Moon.

Phone in hand, Argentina's President Javier Milei has become a social media junkie who tears into opponents, shares bizarre memes, vents and retweets with a gusto that has seen him dubbed an online "troll."

Israel's war cabinet, seen as a symbol of national unity in the war against Hamas, has been shaken by political rivalry between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and centrist Benny Gantz, analysts say.

The armorer who loaded the gun that killed a cinematographer on the set of the Alec Baldwin movie "Rust" was convicted Wednesday of involuntary manslaughter.

Around a thousand people on Wednesday rallied in Warsaw against sexual violence after the death of a raped Belarusian immigrant sent shockwaves through the community of Belarusian exiles in Poland. 25-year-old Liza, only identified by her first name, died in hospital last week after having been brutally attacked and raped while walking at night in Warsaw city centre.

Bumblebees and chimpanzees can learn skills from their peers so complicated that they could never have mastered them on their own, an ability previously thought to be unique to humans, two studies said on Wednesday.

The UN Security Council expressed its concern over the deteriorating situation in violence-gripped Haiti on Wednesday, as Washington ramped up pressure on absent Prime Minister Ariel Henry to secure a political settlement.

Senegalese voters should finally head to the polls at the end of March, following a string of announcements late Wednesday marking the latest twist in weeks of crisis triggered by the delay to the presidential election.

A missile fired by Yemen's Huthi rebels hit a bulk carrier in the Gulf of Aden on Wednesday, with the crew reporting three people dead and at least four wounded, the US military said.

Donald Trump on Wednesday challenged Joe Biden to an election debate after the two men emerged from primary voting as the all-but-certain Republican and Democratic candidates in November's US presidential vote.

Haiti's Jimmy "Barbecue" Cherizier presents himself as a revolutionary, and is seldom pictured without his rifle and spare clips of ammunition.

Chilean Antonia Garros, a gastronomy student, was just 23 when she jumped from a 13th-floor balcony in 2017 after her boyfriend assaulted her yet again.

South Africa on Wednesday petitioned the International Court of Justice to impose fresh emergency measures on Israel over what it described as the "widespread starvation" resulting from its Gaza offensive.

This incident marks the first fatalities in the ongoing Houthi attacks on Red Sea ships.

If and when the hostages held by Hamas in Gaza are released under any deal, they face the risk of lasting psychological trauma, experts warned, citing the suffering of people freed previously.

New York said Wednesday it would deploy National Guard troops and police across the city subway due to surging violence on the network serving the United States' largest metropolis.

US lawmakers were set to vote Wednesday to end a long-running row over the federal budget with a giant bill to fund several major federal agencies through the fall, averting a partial shutdown due to start at the weekend.

Russia's "war crimes" in Ukraine have been recorded in tens of thousands of case files and it must answer them in court, the Ukrainian prosecutor general said in Brussels.

Egypt secured an extra $5 billion in IMF loans on Wednesday, the two sides said, after the central bank hiked interest rates and allowed the pound to plunge by nearly 40 percent.

The European Union is poised to use artificial intelligence and other tools to create a "cyber shield" protecting critical infrastructure and sectors from threats, officials said Wednesday.

At least 8,565 people died on migration routes worldwide in 2023, making it the deadliest year since records began a decade ago, the United Nations said Wednesday.

A reciprocal agreement between Kenya and Haiti to send police from the East African nation to the violence-wracked country has raised hopes the Nairobi-led, UN-backed multinational peace mission could deploy soon.

It's the 152nd day of the war in Gaza, and tensions in the Middle East continue to surge as a U.S.-owned merchant ship "suffered damage" following an attack in the Red Sea. The humanitarian situation in Gaza has worsened, and Israel's allies have signaled growing frustration over the Netanyahu government's handling of aid entries into the war-torn enclave.

Spanish prosecutors on Wednesday called for Real Madrid coach Carlo Ancelotti to be jailed for four years and nine months, saying he had failed to declare earnings to the tax office.

Ukraine launched a drone attack on a Russian metal plant in a border region on Wednesday, causing a fire at a fuel tank, the local governor said.

The UN Security Council will hold an emergency meeting Wednesday on violence-wracked Haiti, where marauding gangs are threatening a bloody civil war unless absent Prime Minister Ariel Henry steps down.

A surprise deal reached one year ago to mend ties with Iran has paid dividends for Saudi Arabia, largely shielding it from the Israel-Hamas war and related unrest, analysts say.

Hong Kong's justice minister said Wednesday the city does not plan to ban social media under a proposed national security law after a public consultation document included suggestions that some apps should be barred.