WORLD

For Pakistani police, reports of a college campus rape that went viral this month are "fake news" fomenting unrest.

Italian priest Davide Marcheselli has been fighting for years against Chinese companies illegally mining gold in the town of Kitutu in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken heads Thursday to key Hamas mediator Qatar as he seeks momentum to end the Gaza war following Israel's killing of the group's leader.

Before the Zaha Hadid-designed plaza, before the luxury high rises, before the South Korean neighbourhood hosted fashion week, there was a pastor handing out rice to poor pensioners in Seoul's Dongdaemun district.

Inter Milan head into Sunday's clash with Juventus in fine spirits after snatching a last gasp win at Young Boys while their Serie A title rivals are struggling to fire under new coach Thiago Motta.

New Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba's snap election gamble could backfire this Sunday, with his ruling party at risk of losing its majority for the first time in 15 years.

Pakistan is hoping to finalize both the delayed privatization of its flag carrier and the outsourcing of Islamabad's international airport in November, the country's finance minister said Wednesday.

A specialist London bookstore is selling an original typescript of Antoine de Saint-Exupery's children's classic "The Little Prince", complete with the author's hand-written corrections and revisions.

With a gun in hand, Colonel Victor Revoredo and his team watched a small house where one of the most wanted criminals in Trujillo, the epicenter of extortion in northern Peru, could be hiding.

A global treaty to curb plastic pollution will be secured at a summit in South Korea next month, the chair of the talks pledged Wednesday, although he cautioned there were still complex disputes and the time frame was a "big challenge".

The proportion of women killed in conflict in 2023 doubled compared to the previous year, according to a UN report that denounced "oppressive patriarchal" structures and called out an increase in sexual violence in war zones.

Georgia's ruling party held its final campaign rally on Wednesday ahead of crucial elections pitting it against a pro-Western opposition union which accuses the government of increasing authoritarianism.

As temperatures fall in Gaza, displaced Palestinians living in makeshift shelters with little food or warm clothes fear the approaching winter, the second since the war began.

EU chief Ursula von der Leyen on Wednesday pledged that membership expansion would be high on the Brussels agenda, as she arrived in Albania at the start of a tour of six Balkan nations hoping to join the bloc.

Israeli strikes on Wednesday pounded Lebanon's Tyre, an ancient coastal city which boasts a UNESCO World Heritage site, leaving swathes of its centre in ruins.

Belarus will hold a presidential election on January 26, four and a half years after widespread allegations of vote rigging in the last ballot led to nationwide mass protests.

Four people were killed and 14 others wounded in an attack on the headquarters of a top Turkish defence firm near Ankara, Turkish officials said Wednesday.

The victim was a Sikh woman who had moved to Canada a few years ago.

The Chinese government should use its tax-and-spend policies to help boost flagging economic growth, a senior IMF official told AFP ahead of key meetings this week in Washington.

Sri Lanka deployed troops and increased police patrols around a Jewish community centre in a popular surfing town on Wednesday after the US embassy warned its citizens of a possible attack there.

Gisele Pelicot, whose ex-husband and dozens of other men are on trial in France accused of raping her, said Wednesday she was "broken" by her ordeal, but also "determined" to help other women.

Two survivors of a deadly 2017 suicide attack on an Ariana Grande concert in northern England in 2017 won a harassment claim on Wednesday against a former television producer who claims the attack was a hoax.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday sought to make headway with Saudi Arabia on normalisation with Israel, hoping a potentially historic deal will offer incentives to end the war in Gaza.

A Greenland court will decide Wednesday whether to keep US-Canadian anti-whaling activist Paul Watson in custody pending a decision on his extradition to Japan, where he is wanted over an altercation with whalers.

The meeting in the city of Kazan is the largest diplomatic forum in Russia since Putin ordered troops into Ukraine in 2022, triggering a barrage of Western sanctions and international condemnation.

The World Health Organization said it was forced to postpone the last phase of the polio vaccination drive in Gaza on Wednesday due to "intense bombardment" and "escalating violence" in the north.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres arrived in Russia on Wednesday to attend the BRICS summit, his first visit to the country for more than two years that has drawn scorn from Ukraine.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Wednesday "now is the time" to end the conflict in Gaza, and urged Israel to avoid further escalation with Iran.

On Najmeddine Tantoun's farm on the outskirts of the western Libyan city of Misrata, the usual whir of hundreds of dairy milking machines has given way to near silence.