A top-level Taliban delegation visiting China assured Beijing the group will not allow Afghanistan to be used as a base for plotting against another country, an insurgent spokesman said Wednesday. The delegation is in China for talks with Beijing o...

Simone Biles abandoned the defence of her individual all-around Olympic crown on Wednesday, a day after her shock withdrawal from the women’s team final over mental health concerns.

French President Emmanuel Macron said Tuesday that Paris owed “a debt” to French Polynesia over nuclear tests conducted in the South Pacific territory between 1966 and 1996, but stopped short of apologising.

Israel announced Wednesday it is to issue 16,000 more permits for Palestinians from the occupied West Bank to work in its construction and hotel industries, taking the total to over 100,000. "Israel intends to increase by 15,000 workers the quota o...

Imagine a world where you could sit on the same couch as a friend who lives thousands of miles away, or conjure up a virtual version of your workplace while at the beach. Welcome to the metaverse: a vision of the future that sounds fantastical, but...

Saeid Mollaei, an Iranian-born judoka now competing for Mongolia, has won the silver medal for his sport at the Tokyo Games. Mollaei left his country and became a naturalised Mongolian citizen after Iran effectively prohibited him from facing an Is...

Thousands of migrants are stranded in a Colombian port town as they wait for boats to cross into neighboring Panama on their way to the United States, a state relief agency said. The Gulf of Uraba, on Colombia's northern coast, is one of the main t...

In a cottage outside Moscow, Konstantin Kotov goes through a handful of the hundreds of letters he received when he spent more than a year behind bars for violating Russian protest rules. The opposition activist served his sentence in Penal Colony ...

French President Emmanuel Macron said Tuesday that Paris owed "a debt" to French Polynesia over nuclear tests conducted in the South Pacific territory between 1966 and 1996, but stopped short of apologising. "I want truth and transparency," Macron ...

Defending champion Simone Biles has withdrawn from the final of the Olympic individual all-around gymnastics competition due to ongoing concerns over her mental health, USA Gymnastics confirmed on Wednesday. "After further medical evaluation, Simon...

Taiwan's police on Wednesday said they had launched an investigation after local media reported more than 100 LINE messaging app accounts used by officials had been hacked and the company admitted "abnormal activities" had been detected. The hacked...

Leftist Pedro Castillo is to be sworn in as Peru's president Wednesday with a full inbox: tame the coronavirus epidemic, reactivate a flagging economy, and put paid to years of political turmoil. The rural school teacher becomes Peru's fifth presid...

New Zealand Rugby confirmed a deal Wednesday for petrochemical giant Ineos to sponsor the All Blacks, in an agreement slammed by environmental watchdog Greenpeace. Ineos has signed a six-year deal which will put its logo on the shorts of the 15- an...

Derided by purists, evangelised by innovators: "super shoes" are the tools of the trade for today's athletes and will continue to radically change the landscape of track and road running, experts have told AFP. A mass of not only new world records,...

After battling increasingly large and deadly wildfires non-stop for weeks, and with no respite in sight, firefighters in California are admitting they are burnt out. "After a point, you start getting a little screwy, your mental health doesn't do w...