WORLD

Raghad Qassem searched all over Iraq's capital Baghdad for a psychologist she could talk to about her problems, before finally settling for consultations online.

China is "ready to be a partner and friend of the United States," President Xi Jinping told US business leaders on Wednesday, as concerns mount over the country's slowing economy.

More than half a million students in South Korea are sitting the crucial national university entrance exam on Thursday, with authorities set to take extraordinary measures including halting flights to minimise distraction.

At Mexico's narrowest point, linking the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, the government is building a railway rival to the Panama Canal with promises of economic bounty but amid fears of environmental and social harm.

Many in the majority-Jewish Canadian town of Hampstead worried about the potential for unrest tied to the Israel-Hamas war, but residents of the small Quebec community have been startled by the scale of the outbreak of anti-Semitic incidents in recent weeks.

Israel renewed its operation at Gaza's largest hospital Thursday, targeting what it maintains is a Hamas command centre concealed in a complex sheltering more than 2,000 civilians.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping warned US President Joe Biden at a summit to stop arming Taiwan, but agreed to restart high-level military-to-military talks, Beijing said Thursday.

The ancient Vietnamese city of Hue, a world heritage site popular with tourists, was underwater Wednesday after heavy rain flooded thousands of homes and blocked highways.

Tens of thousands packed a rally in Washington on Tuesday to support Israel and to condemn anti-Semitism in a riposte to weeks of largely pro-Palestinian demonstrations across a deeply divided United States.

China and the United States will launch a working group on climate cooperation, both countries said Wednesday, as the two sides work to deepen communication and mend fractured ties with a leaders' meeting in San Francisco just hours away.

The Maldives's incoming president Mohamed Muizzu has vowed to expel Indian troops after taking office later this week, but told AFP he does not want to redraw regional balance by bringing in Chinese forces instead.

US President Joe Biden and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping arrived in San Francisco on Tuesday on the eve of an eagerly awaited meeting between the leaders of the world's two largest economies.

Argentina's annual inflation rate has hit 143 percent, the statistics agency announced Monday, just days before a presidential election in which the dire state of the economy will be a deciding factor.

A humble restaurant on a Beijing street serving up a hearty dish of pork liver, lungs and intestines was once the site of an unconventional China-US rapprochement.

More than a hundred rescuers in northern India struggled for a third day on Tuesday to save dozens of workers trapped underground after the road tunnel they were building collapsed.

Gaza's main hospital has been forced to bury scores of dead patients in a mass grave, its director said Tuesday, as US President Joe Biden pressed Israel to protect the complex trapped in fierce combat.

The world is "failing to get a grip" on climate change, the UN warned Tuesday, as an assessment of current climate pledges shows only minor progress on reducing emissions this decade.

Jailed Philippine human rights campaigner Leila de Lima was "triumphant" on Monday after a judge granted her bail, putting her a step closer to freedom after nearly seven years behind bars.

The hospitals in the centre of the heaviest north Gaza fighting have been forced out of service amid shortages and combat, the Hamas-run health ministry said Monday, adding the number of patients dying in the biggest medical centre had risen.

US and South Korean defence chiefs on Monday updated a key military agreement against nuclear-armed North Korea for the first time in a decade as they hailed their "stronger than ever" alliance.

The latest negotiations towards a global treaty to combat plastic pollution open in Nairobi on Monday, with tensions expected as nations tussle over what should be included in the pact.

President Joe Biden, eager to showcase US leadership in the face of Beijing and Moscow, this week leads another major summit, but this time the guests will include not only allies but Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Hundreds of demonstrators, from anti-capitalists to pro-Palestinian advocates, gathered in San Francisco on Sunday on the eve of an APEC summit to protest against the world bloc.

The United States will treat Russia as a full participant in this week's Asia-Pacific summit in San Francisco, despite US efforts to isolate Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine, a senior official said Sunday.

US health authorities on Thursday approved the world's first vaccine for chikungunya, a virus spread by infected mosquitoes that the Food and Drug Administration called "an emerging global health threat."

A team of surgeons in New York has performed the world's first transplant of an entire eye in a procedure widely hailed as a medical breakthrough, although it isn't yet known whether the man will ever see through the donated eye.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will hold talks Friday in New Delhi seeking to bolster India as a regional counterweight to China and win backing for its position on Israel's war with Hamas.

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ruled out a ceasefire in Gaza on Thursday, saying the military was performing "exceptionally well," but insisted Israel does not plan to reoccupy the Palestinian territory.

Myanmar's junta-backed president said the country is at risk of breaking apart if the military cannot crush a joint offensive by ethnic armed groups along the border with China, state media reported Thursday.