WORLD

China said Thursday it opposed "malicious hype" concerning this week's removal of foreign minister Qin Gang, as it continued to avoid questions about the senior diplomat's disappearance.

Currently, the Indian economy sits in the fifth position in the world, behind the U.S., China, Japan and Germany.

Almost 800 irregular migrants drowned off Tunisia in the first half of this year as they tried to reach Europe by boat, a National Guard spokesman told AFP Thursday. "789 bodies of migrants were recovered from the sea, including 102 Tunisians, the others foreigners and unidentified people," said Houcem Eddine Jebabli, adding that more than 34,000 were rescued.

The U.S. prosecutors surprisingly announced Wednesday that they were dropping the lawsuit against Bankman-Fried, citing the country's treaty obligations to The Bahamas, the country to which Bankman-Fried was extradited in December 2022.

"Unless the manpower in R&D sector is raised by at least 10 times, it cannot compete with China in the same sector. It has to raise by a factor of 40-50 to complete with USA. So that's a big vacuum,"

Thousands of Shiite Muslims marched through Indian-administered Kashmir's largest city Thursday for a major religious procession permitted in the restive territory for the first time since a ban was imposed decades ago.

Lindsey Horan denied the Netherlands a famous victory against the United States on Thursday in a 1-1 draw while co-hosts Australia were primed to face Nigeria and seal a place in the last 16.

On the road linking Niger's capital Niamey with the south of the country, illegal fuel warehouses have closed and intrepid black-market touts waving petrol canisters at passing cars have become an endangered species.

Forty years ago, mobs in Sri Lanka burned 13 people alive, part of a week-long pogrom that turbocharged simmering ethnic unrest into all-out civil war.

The Russian president will on Thursday host leaders of African countries for a summit in his native Saint Petersburg, as the continent braces for the consequences of Moscow's withdrawal from the Ukraine grain export deal.

Seventeen Ecuador corrections officials held hostage by prison inmates were freed Wednesday, authorities said, as they struggled to compile a death toll from the dismembered body parts left over from days of fighting between rival gangs.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Thursday that New Zealand would be welcome to engage in the AUKUS alliance, a landmark pact aimed at counterbalancing China's rise in the Pacific.

As Sahel countries such as Mali and Burkina Faso fell to military junta rule in recent years, Niger's Mohamed Bazoum stood as one of the region's few remaining pro-Western, democratically elected leaders.

Captain Lindsey Horan scored a second-half equaliser as holders the United States came from behind to draw 1-1 with the Netherlands at the Women's World Cup on Thursday, in a rematch of the 2019 final between the teams.

US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin on Thursday announced the deployment of a US Coastguard ship to Papua New Guinea, as Washington seeks to boost its military footprint in the region amid fierce competition for influence with China.

Kim Jong Un met Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu in Pyongyang ahead of a key Korean War anniversary, state media said Thursday, the North Korean leader's first known foreign guest since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Irish pop singer Sinead O'Connor, who shot to worldwide fame in the 1990s, has died at the age of 56, Irish media reported on Wednesday.

African migrants pleaded to be saved from a desert zone between Libya and Tunisia on Wednesday, weeks after Tunisian authorities allegedly dumped dozens of them there with nothing.

The International Seabed Authority has delayed the release of regulations for deep-sea mining until 2025. Deep-sea mining may be the future of raw material gathering.

We are not alone -- and American authorities are covering up the evidence, a former US intelligence officer told a congressional committee on Wednesday.

Italian lawmakers on Wednesday backed a bill to extend the country's ban on surrogacy to couples who seek it abroad, sparking warnings the move was unconstitutional and would damage children's rights.

US President Joe Biden's son Hunter pleaded not guilty to minor tax offenses Wednesday as a deal with federal prosecutors derailed in a Delaware court.

Italian lawmakers began deliberating Wednesday a bill to toughen a ban on surrogacy to make it illegal to seek it abroad, sparking criticism the government was targeting LGBTQ rights.

Bandmates Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood led the birthday wishes for The Rolling Stones' legendary frontman Mick Jagger, as he turned 80 on Wednesday.

Hollywood actor Kevin Spacey was found not guilty in Britain Wednesday of nine alleged sex offences against men, which follows the Oscar winner's being cleared in a US case.

Turkey's leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday spoke in Ankara with the Palestinian president and the head of Hamas in the run-up to a crucial meeting of Palestinian factions set for the weekend.

A jury in the UK on Wednesday found Oscar-winning actor Kevin Spacey not guilty of nine sex offences against four men alleged to have occurred between 2001 and 2013.

"Piloting rupee trade with India's most important partners in the immediate neighborhood, both economic and strategic, is of great significance to bring in predictability and assurances in long-term trade," Dr. Sabyasachi Saha, associate professor at the Research and Information System for Developing Countries, said.

Russia on Wednesday sentenced Ilya Sachkov, co-founder of the Group-IB cybersecurity firm, to 14 years in prison on treason charges, according to an AFP journalist in the Moscow court.