Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem said Sunday his group would not surrender or lay down its weapons in response to Israeli threats, despite pressure on the Lebanese militants to disarm

Speaking before boarding Israel's state jet bound for Washington, Netanyahu said: "We are working to achieve this deal that we have discussed, under the conditions that we have agreed to."

The BRICS also called for a "full withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip and all other parts of the Occupied Palestinian Territories."

Smolyan, Bulgaria -- At a prison nestled deep in Bulgaria's southern Rhodope mountains, Georgi Filyanov stirs a large tank of curdling milk to make traditional feta-like cheese in the facility's dairy operation. Filyanov is the latest success story to emerge from the dairy located inside Smolyan prison, where about 15 selected...

Washington, United States -- US tariffs will kick in on August 1 if trading partners from Taiwan to the European Union do not strike deals with Washington, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Sunday. The rates will "boomerang back" to the sometimes very high levels which President Donald Trump had announced...

"We cannot remain indifferent to the genocide carried out by Israel in Gaza, the indiscriminate killing of innocent civilians and the use of hunger as a weapon of war," President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva told leaders from China, India, and other nations.

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil -- BRICS leaders meeting in Rio de Janeiro from Sunday are expected to decry US President Donald Trump's "indiscriminate" trade tariffs, saying they are illegal and risk hurting the global economy. Emerging nations, which represent about half the world's population and 40 percent of global economic...

But Netanyahu, who is due to meet with President Donald Trump in Washington on Monday, said the Palestinian group's proposals for changes to a draft US-backed ceasefire deal were "unacceptable".

The world's richest person -- and Trump's biggest political donor in the 2024 election -- had a bitter falling out with the president after leading the Republican's effort to slash spending and cut federal jobs as head of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

Los Banos, United States -- Oblivious to the punishing midday heat, a wheeled robot powered by the sun and infused with artificial intelligence carefully combs a cotton field in California, plucking out weeds. As farms across the United States face a shortage of laborers and weeds grow resistant to herbicides,...

Istanbul, Turkey - Turkey's competition authority has launched an investigation into Spotify for anti-competitive practices as a deputy minister demanded legal action over "provocative" playlists allegedly offensive to the president's wife and disrespectful of Islam. In a statement released on Friday, the competition authority said it had opened an investigation...

In 2011, Britain was among the first countries to acknowledge rebel groups as the official Syrian government after then-president Bashar al-Assad's crushing of pro-democracy protests plunged the country into civil war.

"The movement is ready to engage immediately and seriously in a cycle of negotiations on the mechanism to put in place" the US-backed truce proposal, the militant group said in a statement.

Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said the army must draw up a plan to prevent Iran from threatening Israel again after the arch-foes fought a 12-day war last month, in comments released Friday.

Syria said on Friday it was willing to cooperate with the United States to reimplement the 1974 disengagement agreement with Israel, which created a UN-patrolled buffer zone separating the two countries' forces.

Sinjil, Palestinian Territories - Dozens of Israeli settlers and Palestinians clashed Friday in the occupied West Bank village of Sinjil, where a march against recent settler attacks on nearby farmland was due to take place. AFP journalists saw local residents and activists begin their march before locals reported that settlers...

Russia on Friday said that it sees no immediate diplomatic way out of the war in Ukraine, hours after pummelling the war-torn country with its largest ever drone and missile barrage of the invasion.

Trump pushed Republican lawmakers to get his unpopular "One Big Beautiful Bill" through a reluctant Congress in time for him to sign it into law on the US national holiday -- and they did so with a day to spare Thursday. Ever the showman, Trump will now meld a victory...

The United Nations and major aid groups have refused to cooperate with the Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation over concerns it was designed to cater to Israeli military objectives and violates basic humanitarian principles.

This is the highest Abu Dhabi real-estate release to date.

Jerusalem, Undefined -- Israel's opposition leader said Friday he met with the United Arab Emirates foreign minister in Abu Dhabi and discussed efforts for a ceasefire in Gaza. The UAE normalized ties with Israel in 2020 as part of the US-brokered Abraham Accords. Abu Dhabi also has close ties with...

Iran announced Thursday that it has reopened its airspace, including over Tehran, after closing it on June 13 due to the war with Israel, according to state media

Afghanistan's government said on Thursday that Russia had become the first country to officially recognise its rule, calling it a "brave decision".

US President Donald Trump said he made no progress with Vladimir Putin on ending the Ukraine war in a call Thursday, as the Kremlin insisted the Russian president would stick to his aims in the conflict.

Netanyahu has come under strong pressure to get the hostages back after US President Donald Trump said Israel had agreed to a 60-day ceasefire with Palestinian militant group Hamas that could lead to their release.

Cairo, Egypt -- Mohammed bin Ahmed Al Yamahi, President of the Arab Parliament, has strongly condemned and rejected the dangerous statements issued by Israeli officials, most recently the statements made by the Israeli Minister of Justice, in which he explicitly called for the annexation of the West Bank and the...

Tokyo, Japan -- Japan will from January attempt to extract rare earth minerals from the ocean floor in the deepest trial of its kind, the director of a government innovation programme said Thursday. Earlier this week the country pledged to work with the United States, India and Australia to ensure...

They included 38 people waiting for humanitarian aid at three separate locations in central and southern Gaza and a child killed by a drone in Jabalia in the north.

Excited astronomers are still refining their calculations, but the object appears to be zooming at a speed up to 60 kilometres (37 miles) a second, which would mean it is not bound by the Sun's orbit, unlike comets, which all originate from within the Solar System.

Syrian state media reported Wednesday that statements on signing a peace deal with Israel were "premature", days after Israel said it was interested in striking a normalisation agreement with Damascus.

It came after last month's 12-day conflict between Iran and Israel, which saw unprecedented Israeli and US strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities and sharply escalated tensions between Tehran and the International Atomic Energy Agency.

The Israeli leader had yet to comment on US President Donald Trump's claim that Israel had backed a plan for a 60-day truce in its offensive against Hamas in the war-ravaged territory.

It said it sought "to reach an agreement that guarantees ending the aggression, achieving the withdrawal (of Israel from Gaza) and urgently aiding our people in the Gaza Strip".

San Francisco, United States -- Microsoft on Wednesday said it was slashing a little less than four percent of its global workforce as it seeks to cut layers of middle management and leverage new technologies. "We continue to implement organizational changes necessary to best position the company and teams for...

Shares rally after the disclosure, better than some forecasts.

Paris, France -- When Jocelyn Leitzinger had her university students write about times in their lives they had witnessed discrimination, she noticed that a woman named Sally was the victim in many of the stories. "It was very clear that ChatGPT had decided this is a common woman's name," said...

The White House said Tuesday it is halting some key weapons shipments to Ukraine that were promised under the Biden administration for Kyiv's battle against the Russian invasion.

Rising star of the American left Zohran Mamdani is now officially the Democratic candidate for mayor of New York City, according to official primary election results released Tuesday.

One week after a ceasefire ended Israel's 12-day war with Iran, the two men also discussed Tehran's nuclear programme, with Macron suggesting Moscow and Paris work together to de-escalate tensions.

The intensified operations came after days of mounting calls for a ceasefire, with US President Donald Trump -- whom Netanyahu is scheduled to meet next week -- among those urging Israel to strike a new deal to halt the war and bring home the hostages still held in Gaza.

Once a bustling seafront spot where young people could hope for a rare respite from war, Gaza City's al-Baqa cafe lay in ruins after an Israeli strike killed 24 people including a journalist and an artist.

Seville, Spain -- Countries including France, Kenya, Barbados and Spain on Monday launched a coalition to push for taxes on wealthy air passengers to help poorer nations respond to climate change, the French presidency said. The coalition, which also brings together Somalia, Benin, Sierra Leone and Antigua and Barbuda, said...

New York, United States -- Mark Zuckerberg and Meta are spending billions to recruit top artificial intelligence talent, triggering debates about whether the aggressive hiring spree will pay off in the competitive generative AI race. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently complained that Meta has offered $100 million bonuses to lure...

Rome, Italy -- Next season's Italian Super Cup will be played for the fourth time in Saudi Arabia but in December instead of January, the president of the Italian League announced on Tuesday. "The dates for the Super Cup are December 18 and 19 for the semi-finals, and the 22...

New York, United States - The Trump administration on Monday accused Harvard of violating the civil rights of its Jewish and Israeli students and threatened to cut off all federal funding if the university does not take urgent action. Harvard has been at the forefront of Donald Trump's campaign against...

Britain's top diplomat David Lammy held top-level talks in Ankara Monday that touched on developments in the Middle East and stronger bilateral trade ties on his first visit to Turkey.

As belly dancing gains popularity internationally, young Egyptian performers are working to restore its reputation at home, pushing back against decades of stigma to reclaim the dance as part of their artistic heritage.

The swift resolution of Israel's 12-day war with Iran has revived hopes for a halt to the fighting in Gaza, where more than 20 months of combat have created dire humanitarian conditions for the population of more than two million.

"The action taken by parliament members... is a natural response to the unjustified, unconstructive, and destructive conduct of the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency," Pezeshkian told Macron in a phone call.

The firm said it was realigning its organization as it embraces AI.