AFP news

Polling had suggested that the secular opposition figurehead Kemal Kilicdaroglu had a chance of crossing the 50-percent threshold required to win Turkey's momentous presidential ballot without contesting a May 28 runoff.

On his latest stop in a tour of European allies, Zelensky dined with French President Emmanuel Macron at the Elysee Palace on Sunday night and held discussions that included building up Ukraine's arsenal.

There has been some progress on reaching a deal but Democrats and Republicans remain at loggerheads, though President Joe Biden said he was confident the debt ceiling will be raised.

Across Khartoum, those still alive remain barricaded, hoping to dodge stray bullets and enduring desperate shortages of food and basic supplies.

Moments after Khan was detained by a swarm of paramilitary Rangers on Tuesday, the interior ministry restricted nationwide access to Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.

Erdogan has been campaigning round the clock as he nears momentous polls Sunday that put his Islamic style of rule in the only Muslim-majority member of NATO on the line.

Kyiv's claimed gains near the epicentre of the war's fiercest battle have been refuted by Moscow, but come as expectations build over the anticipated, high-stakes fightback.

Britain's decision will make it the first country to provide longer-range missiles to Kyiv, which has been training a new contingent of forces and stockpiling Western-supplied munitions and hardware.

The UN Human Rights Council's 47 members voted with 18 in favour, 15 opposed and 14 abstaining for a resolution calling for an end to the violence and strengthening the mandate of a UN expert on Sudan.

Sarkozy is accused of corruption, illegal campaign financing and concealing the embezzlement of public funds, the prosecutors ssid in a statement.

The Kurdish regional government had for years earned billions of dollars in revenues exporting oil to Turkey without the Iraqi federal government's approval.

"This includes allowing safe passage for civilians to leave areas of active hostilities on a voluntary basis, in the direction they choose," the declaration said.

While the astronomers offered what they think is the most likely explanation for the explosion, they emphasised that more research was needed to understand the puzzling phenomenon.

Twitter users in December voted to oust owner Musk as chief executive in an unscientific poll he organized and promised to honor, just weeks after he took charge of the social media giant.

"Your arrest was invalid, so the whole process needs to be backtracked," Chief Justice Umar Ata Bandial told Khan at a hearing in the capital Islamabad on Thursday.

Kuleba blasted the "neutrality" of several Latin American governments, saying that Russia's aggression is setting an example that other nations may follow.

Their hopes were given a further boost Thursday by news that jobless claims last week hit their highest since October 2021, suggesting the labour market was showing some slack.

Aired at a huge rally and beamed live on TV, the video showed opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu trying to rally his supporters to the tune of his campaign song.

The Caucasus neighbours have been locked in a decades-long territorial dispute over the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan, which has reignited in recent months.

The 59-year-old announced his decision after being targeted by an online smear campaign that included doctored images of him meeting women and riding around in fancy cars.

Saudi Arabia mobilised a coalition to back the internationally recognised government in 2015, after the Iran-backed Huthis seized the capital Sanaa the previous year.

A regional power of 85 million people and NATO's bridgehead in the Middle East, Turkey gradually detached itself from Western allies during President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's 21-year rule.

Emirates Group, which reported a $1.0 billion loss last year, ended 2022-2023 with its highest ever cash balance of $11.6 billion.

Beyond the 17 million displacements inside Ukraine last year, eight million were forced from their homes by Pakistan's monster floods.

The company said the gains were the result of sales improvements and cost-cutting, as well as favourable foreign exchange rate fluctuations.

Air strikes and missiles from Israel have killed 25 Palestinians since Tuesday, said Gaza officials -- among them fighters and civilians, including several children.

Islamic Jihad said one of its military leaders had been killed in a pre-dawn strike Thursday carried out by Israeli forces.

Archaeologist Zahi Hawass's 90-minute documentary "Cleopatra", released on director Curtis Ryan Woodside's YouTube channel, describes itself as telling the "true" story of the Ptolemaic dynasty's last ruler.

Khan was remanded in custody for eight days on corruption charges on Wednesday, the culmination of a rare campaign of defiance against the powerful military.