AFP news

The fugitive father and stepmother of a 10-year-old girl found dead at her home in Britain said Wednesday that they are prepared to cooperate with UK authorities, after they fled to Pakistan.

Statements by G20 ministers ahead of a key summit are "woefully inadequate" about addressing the climate emergency, the UN's climate change chief told AFP in an interview Wednesday, calling for stronger action from the nations responsible for most planet-heating pollution.

The UK government said on Wednesday it would ban Russian mercenary outfit the Wagner Group by listing it as a terrorist organisation.

The United States slapped sanctions on top officials of Sudan's Rapid Support Forces Wednesday for a range of alleged murders and rights abuses, including the killing of the governor of West Darfur.

A rise in imports widened the US trade deficit in July, government data showed Wednesday, although the increase was smaller than analysts had expected.

Ukraine's newly appointed Defence Minister Rustem Umerov vowed on Wednesday to recapture all territory under Russian military control, in his first comments in the new role.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday confirmed a major policy reversal by backing his new economic team's decision to drastically hike interest rates to fight runaway inflation.

United States-backed Kurdish-led fighters in northern Syria on Wednesday fought a deadly battle with Turkish-supported forces who said they intervened after clashes killed dozens in an Arab-majority province further east.

The European Union's enlargement commissioner told Turkey on Wednesday to address issues around democracy and the rule of law if it wants to boost its drive to join the bloc.

Storms that unleashed torrential flooding in Greece, Turkey and Bulgaria have killed at least 11 people, authorities said Wednesday, as extreme heat gave way to heavy rain.

Rustem Umerov, confirmed by parliament as Ukraine's new defence minister Wednesday, is known as a skilful and pragmatic negotiator with excellent connections in the Muslim world.

A Norway court on Wednesday rejected US tech giant Meta's request to defer a ban on behavioural marketing based on users' personal information, which has landed it a heavy fine in the country.

Climate change is driving more intense and more frequent heatwaves, which in turn generate a "witch's brew" of pollutants, threatening the health of humans and all living things, the UN warned Wednesday.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Kyiv Wednesday after another night of Russian strikes on Ukraine, with Washington set to unveil more than $1 billion in fresh aid to battle Russia.

Landmark African climate talks are set to wrap up Wednesday with leaders seeking a united voice to highlight the continent's potential as a green powerhouse, provided the world steps up funding and eases debt.

Russia's central bank announced Wednesday it plans to sharply step up support for the ruble, which has weakened considerably after 18 months of Western sanctions following Moscow's military intervention in Ukraine.

2023 is likely to be the hottest year in human history, and global temperatures during the Northern Hemisphere summer were the warmest on record, the EU climate monitor said on Wednesday.

Most Asian markets fell Wednesday as a jump in oil prices to 10-month highs rekindled worries of another US Federal Reserve interest rate hike.

US President Joe Biden heads to India for the G20 summit this weekend aiming to capitalise on the glaring absence of China's and Russia's leaders to bolster alliances in the sharply divided bloc.

Southeast Asian leaders meet with top US, Chinese and Japanese officials at a series of summits in Indonesia on Wednesday, where big power rivalries and regional issues from the South China Sea to North Korean missiles will be on the table.

With no cell service or phone calls, people in Sudan's war-ravaged western region of Darfur are resorting to a bygone means of communication: handwritten letters, carried by taxi drivers.

On a tiny Caribbean island, hundreds of people are preparing to pack up and move to escape the rising waters threatening to engulf their already precarious homes.

Some six billion tonnes of sand and other sediment is extracted from the world's seas and oceans every year, the UN said Tuesday, warning of the devastating toll on biodiversity and coastal communities.

Elon Musk, the owner of social media platform X, formerly Twitter, said he is considering suing a leading anti-defamation group, arguing that its accusations of anti-Semitism have led the company to lose revenue.

French schools sent dozens of girls home for refusing to remove their abayas -- an over-garment from the shoulders to the feet worn by Muslim women -- on the first day of the school year, a government minister said Tuesday.

Fifty-three members of the security forces have been killed in an attack by suspected jihadists in northern Burkina Faso, the army said on Tuesday.

At a dusty construction site on the bank of the Dnipro river in Kyiv, workers busily prepared the heating system for the upcoming winter while it was still warm.

A Swedish oil company allegedly knew that Sudanese armed forces would use violence to secure areas in which it wanted to operate, prosecutors said Tuesday as two former executives faced war crimes charges.

Gabon's new strongman on Tuesday met central Africa's mediator for the country and started to amnesty dissidents following a coup last week that brought the curtain down on the 55-year Bongo dynasty.