WORLD

Canada's trade surplus widened sharply to Can$1.9 billion (US$1.4 billion) in April, as exports rebounded to an all-time high in terms of volumes, the national statistical agency said Wednesday.

Judges at a U.N. war crimes court ruled that elderly Rwandan genocide suspect Felicien Kabuga is unfit to stand trial but said slimmed-down legal proceedings in his case can continue, in a decision published on Wednesday.

An emerging technology to fish for lobsters virtually ropeless to prevent whale entanglements is exciting conservationists, but getting a frigid reception from harvesters worried it will drive them out of business and upend their way of life.

Pakistani police on Wednesday formally named former prime minister Imran Khan in connection with the murder by unknown gunmen of a lawyer seeking sedition proceedings against him.

The US trade deficit grew in April on a pullback in exports, bringing the gap to its widest since October 2022, according to government data released on Wednesday. The anticipation is that trade could bring negative growth to gross domestic product in the second quarter of the year, ushering in a possible recession.

A Philippine court on Wednesday rejected a bail request by an ex-senator and chief critic of former President Rodrigo Duterte, prolonging her six years of detention on drugs charges that she insists were baseless and politically motivated.

Israel's Knesset will hold a vote next week that could tip the scales against a drive by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's hard-right coalition to curb the Supreme Court, a move that set off one of the country's worst political crises in years.

France's opposition parties on Wednesday were debating a no-confidence motion against the government after the parliament speaker said she would block an attempt to repeal an unpopular pension overhaul that pushes back the retirement age to 64 from 62.

Kenya will convert a vast coastal forest where the bodies of more than 250 people linked to a doomsday cult have been exhumed into a national memorial site, a minister has said.

Rome's Gemelli hospital, where Pope Francis awaits surgery for an abdominal hernia, is the favoured choice of pontiffs to the point of being dubbed "Vatican III" by John Paul II. The Polish pope, who was head of the Catholic church from 1978 until his death in 2005, was treated nine times at Gemelli and spent a total of 153 days there.

A misdiagnosis ruined the dream holiday of a 60-year-old British man aboard a cruise ship as he and his wife were slated to celebrate their wedding anniversary.

Most of the 260 animals in Ukraine's Kazkova Dibrova Zoo are feared dead after the zoo was flooded following the destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam.

Mike Pence announced Wednesday his entry into the 2024 United States presidential election, as the former vice president goes up against his ex-boss Donald Trump for the Republican nomination.

Former Vice President Mike Pence, who served Donald Trump with unwavering loyalty but later turned on him after the 2021 attack on the U.S.

Kosovo could trigger new elections in Serb-majority municipalities rocked by violent protests if 20% of voters sign a petition asking for them, the president told Reuters.

Few trains stop at Bahanaga Bazar, the sleepy, small rural station in the Balasore district of Odisha state where India's deadliest train accident in more than two decades happened.

Pope Francis will undergo an operation for an abdominal hernia on Wednesday at a Rome hospital, where he is expected to stay for "several days", the Vatican said.

Air India said a reserve plane would leave from Mumbai on Wednesday for passengers whose flight was diverted to Russia's Far East on Tuesday after the Boeing 777 widebody aircraft faced an issue with one of its engines.

The head of a small Taiwanese political party who is rising in the polls in his bid for the presidency said on Wednesday that he would not meet Chinese President Xi Jinping just for the sake of it and that there must be a clear aim for such talks.

Prince Harry returns to the High Court in London on Wednesday for a second day of grilling over his claims that British tabloids targeted him with phone-hacking and other unlawful behaviour.

Pakistan's government will hope to find a balance between reforms to satisfy the International Monetary Fund and measures to win over voters in an imminent election in its budget for the 2023-24 fiscal year to be announced on Friday, analysts said.

The diversion of a U.S.-built Air India jetliner to Russia with engine problems has thrust industry tensions surrounding Russian airspace into the spotlight - just a day after the head of a major American carrier predicted an almost identical scenario.

The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) is riding high in the polls to the alarm of mainstream parties and is on track to win three state votes in the east of the country with calls to stop migration and curb what it sees as a costly green agenda.

Vaccines against African swine fever being tested in Vietnam are close to approval, global and U.S.

Some Taiwanese are showing their support for embattled Ukraine by donating to an online campaign that allows them to put their names on an artillery shell.

Indonesia's transport ministry and three consultants have pushed back on a China-funded consortium's plan to start full commercial operations of the country's $7.3 billion first high-speed train service in August, an internal document shows.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in the early hours of Wednesday and discussed a wide range of bilateral issues, in an "open, candid" conversation, a U.S.

There have been speculations that Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin wants to plot a military coup against Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he has yet to receive any appeal from Western governments about the use of their weapons in Russian territories.