AFP news

Chinese President Xi Jinping said Wednesday that maintaining close ties with Russia is a "strategic choice", calling for deeper bilateral cooperation during a meeting with Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin in Beijing, state media reported.

A French court on Wednesday sentenced former Rwandan doctor Sosthene Munyemana to 24 years in prison for his involvement in the 1994 genocide of Tutsis in his native East African country.

A French court on Tuesday sentenced the ex-wife of serial killer Michel Fourniret to life in prison for her role in three murders by her former husband.

The Democratic and Republican leaders of the US Senate said Tuesday that Washington will not be able to approve new aid for Ukraine before year's end, as the two sides continue to seek a compromise.

Survivors of China's deadliest earthquake in years huddled in makeshift aid tents despite freezing temperatures on Wednesday, too scared to return to homes made dangerous by the disaster.

Polling stations opened Wednesday in a high-stakes Democratic Republic of Congo general election pitting the incumbent President Felix Tshisekedi against a fragmented opposition, while much of the east of the country is mired in conflict.

Britain's ruling Conservatives face another potentially bruising by-election early next year after voters in a central English constituency ousted its Tory lawmaker following his suspension from parliament over misconduct allegations.

French sports retail giant Decathlon has secretly continued selling sportswear in Russia despite officially pulling out in protest at Russia's war in Ukraine, a media report published Tuesday said.

Pharmaceutical firms Pfizer and BioNTech are suing the governments of Poland and Hungary alleging they failed to pay for vaccines ordered during the Covid pandemic, lawyers said Tuesday.

Spain said Tuesday it will acquire 10 percent of local telecoms giant Telefonica, just months after Saudi Telecom took a significant stake in the operator.

Pharmacy group Rite Aid was ordered Tuesday to stop using facial recognition for the next five years by a US regulator, which said the company falsely identified consumers as shoplifters using the technology.

Toyota subsidiary Daihatsu said Wednesday it will suspend shipments of all car models in Japan and abroad, following news it had rigged safety tests.

Narcotics police the world over are sprucing up their video game skills, as cartels go increasingly online to sell drugs and recruit dealers.

A French elderly couple on Tuesday saw its request to cancel the 4.2-million-eurosale of a rare African mask that they had let go for 150 euros thrown out, with the court calling their claim frivolous.

Chelsea came back from the brink to reach the League Cup semi-finals with a dramatic penalty shoot-out victory against Newcastle after Mykhailo Mudryk's last-gasp equaliser on Tuesday.

It takes a while but slowly the children gathered around volunteer entertainer Ruaa Hassuna in a Gaza camp start clapping along as her music offers some respite from the horrors around them.

Paris hoteliers were up in arms on Tuesday over a government plan to triple the tax paid by visitors on nights at hotels next year when the capital hosts the Olympics.

An appeals court in Colorado on Tuesday ruled Donald Trump cannot appear on the state's presidential primary ballot because of his involvement in the attack on the Capitol in January 2021.

Meta's independent oversight board on Tuesday criticized the social media titan of removing posts that showed human suffering in the Middle East conflict.

Israel faced another round of global pressure on Tuesday for a ceasefire in Gaza with a new UN vote and fresh Western diplomatic efforts, although the United States vowed to continue arming its ally.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will take questions from journalists on Tuesday at an end-of-year press conference that comes with his military under pressure on the front and allies wavering on aid.

At a chic Stockholm auction house, 122 carefully-curated items with unusual provenance went under the hammer on Monday evening: vintage furnishings from flatpack furniture retailer Ikea was sold for a total of 37,000 euros ($40,000).

Google parent Alphabet has agreed to pay $700 million as part of an antitrust settlement made public on Monday, with the funds going to US customers of its Android app store and state governments.

Yemen's Iran-backed Huthi rebels said Tuesday they would not halt attacks on Red Sea shipping despite the announcement by the United States of a new maritime protection force.

Rescuers in remote villages of northwest China dug through the rubble of collapsed homes on Tuesday after China's deadliest earthquake in years killed at least 118 people and injured hundreds more.

Fourteen people were killed and 178 others injured after a powerful explosion and fire at the main fuel depot in Guinea rocked the centre of the capital Conakry early on Monday, causing substantial damage and bringing the city to a standstill.

A 46-year-old man is facing drunk driving charges after his car crashed into a US Secret Service vehicle attached to President Joe Biden's motorcade, police said Monday.

French MPs and senators on Monday sought to hammer out a compromise over a beleaguered immigration bill as President Emmanuel Macron's government hoped to salvage what is seen as a flagship reform of his second term.

NASA on Monday announced it had used a state-of-the-art laser communication system on a spaceship 19 million miles (31 million kilometers) away from Earth -- to send a high-definition cat video.