In a world where 5 billion people are active on social media, our digital voices shape culture, foster belonging, and carry the responsibility to inspire positive change, writes HH Sheikha Latifa bint Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum.

New York, United States - Mark Zuckerberg and Meta are spending billions of dollars for top talent to make up ground in the generative artificial intelligence race, sparking doubt about the wisdom of the spree. OpenAI boss Sam Altman recently lamented that Meta has offered $100 million bonuses to engineers...

The Iran-Israel war has opened the way to a "new road" for the Middle East in which Turkey will have a key role to play, Washington's envoy to Turkey said Sunday.

His comments lifted hope for a new ceasefire in the devastating conflict in the Palestinian territory, after US President Donald Trump said he hoped a truce could be sealed within days.

"We have serious doubts over the enemy's compliance with its commitments including the ceasefire, we are ready to respond with force" if attacked again," Iranian armed forces chief of staff Abdolrahim Mousavi was quoted as saying.

Belcamp, United States --  In the sweltering US summer, metal containers decorated with snowmen and sleighs are taking shape -- but tempers are also rising as their manufacturer grapples with President Donald Trump's steep steel tariffs. At Independent Can's factory in Belcamp, Maryland northeast of Baltimore, CEO Rick Huether recounts...

Jakarta, Indonesia -- Indonesia broke ground Sunday on a $5.9 billion megaproject for EV battery production backed by Chinese giant CATL, despite NGOs raising concerns over a lack of environmental guarantees. Indonesia is the world's largest nickel producer and it is trying to capitalize on its vast reserves, with a...

Miami, United States -- The main appeal of the Club World Cup so far has been the chance to see South American and African clubs and their fans offer a reminder that football thrives outside of Europe too. But as the tournament moves towards the business end, FIFA's new competition...

Iran also writes to the UN chief to recognize the Israeli regime and the United States as the "initiators of the act of aggression and acknowledge their subsequent responsibility, including reparations."

The deal will see US companies benefit from a "side-by-side" solution under which they will only be taxed at home, on both domestic and foreign profits, the G7 said in a statement released by Canada, which holds the group's rotating presidency.

Dubai, UAE -- A planned trade corridor linking the landlocked Sahel to the Atlantic is at the heart of an ambitious Moroccan project to tackle regional instability and consolidate its grip on disputed Western Sahara. The "Atlantic Initiative" promises ocean access to Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger through a new...

In one particularly jarring example, under threat of being unplugged, Anthropic's latest creation Claude 4 lashed back by blackmailing an engineer and threatened to reveal an extramarital affair.

Yemen's Iran-backed Huthi rebels said they fired a ballistic missile towards Israel on Saturday, in response to Israel's conduct towards Palestinians during the Gaza war.

Iran held a state funeral Saturday for some 60 scientists and commanders killed in its war with Israel, after its top diplomat condemned the latest White House tirade against supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Iran has expanded access to its airspace for international overflights following a ceasefire with Israel, though flight restrictions remain in place across much of the country, an official said Saturday.

US President Donald Trump voiced optimism on Friday about a new ceasefire in Gaza saying an agreement involving Israel and Hamas could come as early as next week.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday that Russia and Ukraine's demands for peace were "absolutely contradictory", after two rounds of peace talks have failed to bring the sides closer to an elusive ceasefire.

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which began operating last month and has largely replaced established humanitarian organisations, "is degrading Palestinians by design, forcing them to choose between starvation or risking their lives."

Israel's foreign minister said Friday the world was obliged to stop Iran developing an atomic bomb, days after Israel claimed it had "thwarted Iran's nuclear project" in a 12-day war.

Iran on Friday rejected a request by UN nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi to visit facilities bombed by Israel and the United States, saying that it suggested "malign intent".

Beijing, China -- Chinese electric vehicle maker Xiaomi received almost 300,000 pre-orders within an hour for its first sport utility vehicles in what the company said was a "miraculous" moment for the industry. Lei Jun, founder and CEO of the electronics-turned-car company, said he was astonished by the reaction from...

Washington, United States -- Conflicts and related fatalities have more than tripled since the early 2000s, fueling extreme poverty, the World Bank said Friday. Economies in fragile and conflict-affected regions have become "the epicenter of global poverty and food insecurity, a situation increasingly shaped by the frequency and intensity of...

In a 6-3 ruling stemming from Trump's bid to end birthright citizenship, the court said nationwide injunctions issued by district court judges "likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has granted to federal courts." The top court did not immediately rule on the constitutionality of Trump's executive order seeking to...

Dubai, United Arab Emirates -- The UAE supreme court has jailed 24 people for life after upholding their convictions for "terrorist" links. "The Criminal Chamber of the Federal Supreme Court ruled (on Thursday) to partially overturn the judgment issued by the State Security Chamber at the Abu Dhabi Federal Court...

Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi shut down what he said was "speculation" that Tehran would come to the table and said it "should not be taken seriously.

London, United Kingdom - The BBC, Britain's public broadcaster that is struggling with strained finances, on Thursday launched a paid subscription service to its website in the United States to help fund its journalism. For $49.99 a year, or $8.99 a month, users will have "unlimited access" to the BBC's...

UN climate chief Simon Stiell urged countries on Thursday to accelerate negotiations ahead of the COP30 in Brazil as there was a lot left to be done.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on Thursday said Gaza was in a "catastrophic situation of genocide" and urged the European Union to immediately suspend its cooperation deal with Israel.

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia -- Cristiano Ronaldo inked a two-year extension with Saudi Arabia's Al Nassr, the club announced Thursday, following months of speculation over which team he would sign for next season. "Cristiano Ronaldo is staying at @AlNassrFC until 2027," the club wrote in a post on X. Minutes before the...

Paris, France -- A gardening game created by a teenager on online platform Roblox has attracted a record 21 million simultaneous players, a figure rarely seen in the industry. "You could quite easily never have heard of Grow a Garden... and yet it is by some measures the biggest video...

The shipment of supplies, plasma and blood will be distributed among hospitals in the Palestinian territory in the coming days, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.

Trump, seeking credit for ordering military action and then quickly announcing a ceasefire between Israel and Iran, has lashed out angrily at media accounts of a classified report that doubted the extent of damage to Iranian nuclear sites.

The war erupted on June 13 when Israel launched a surprise bombing campaign that it said aimed to stop Iran developing a nuclear weapon -- an ambition Iran has consistently denied.

Lebanese militant group Hezbollah on Wednesday hailed what it called its ally Iran's victory over Israel after 12 days of war, declaring it the start of a "new historical phase".

Bezos, 61, and Sanchez, 55, are said to have booked out the city's finest hotels for a star-studded guest list rumoured to include Leonardo DiCaprio, Mick Jagger, Kim Kardashian, Oprah Winfrey and Orlando Bloom.

Tehran, Iran -- Iranian lawmakers voted Wednesday in favor of suspending cooperation with the United Nations' atomic energy watchdog, state TV said, after a 12-day war that saw Israeli and US strikes on nuclear sites. "The International Atomic Energy Agency, which refused to even marginally condemn the attack on Iran's...

The telescope, which can see farther into the universe than anything before it, has turbocharged the search for planets beyond the Solar System since coming online in 2022.

Beirut, Lebanon -- The World Bank announced on Wednesday it had approved $250 million to support Lebanon's post-war reconstruction and a $146 million grant to rehabilitate neighboring Syria's electricity sector. Lebanon is reeling from last year's devastating war between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah, while Syria faces massive needs after Islamist-led...

"I think great progress is being made on Gaza," Trump said, adding that his special envoy Steve Witkoff had told him: "Gaza is very close." He linked his optimism about imminent "very good news" to Israel-Iran ceasefire.

The Hague, Netherlands - NATO leaders are set to sign off Wednesday at their Hague summit on a defence spending pledge to satisfy US President Donald Trump's demand for a headline figure of five percent of GDP. Here are the details of what NATO is signing up to: Five percent?...

New York City Democrats chose 33-year-old Muslim socialist Zohran Mamdani as their mayoral candidate in Tuesday's elections, stunning his opponent, former New York governor Andrew Cuomo.

China's Ministry of State Security (MSS) said the placement of what amounted to job advertisements on social media platform X was an "amateurish gambit" to convince people to spy for the Americans.

Trump rejected that claim on Tuesday, posting on his Truth Social account that “the nuclear sites in Iran are completely destroyed.”

The Fed has a duty to prevent a one-time spike in prices from becoming an "ongoing inflation problem," said Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell before the House Committee on Financial Services.

Civil defense spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP that 21 people were killed and around 150 wounded by Israeli fire near an aid point in central Gaza early Tuesday, and that another 25 were killed in a separate incident in south Gaza.

The main international and US oil contracts briefly bounced off their lows as Israel and Iran accused each other of breaking the ceasefire, but  then fell around five percent after Trump berated the two countries in an expletive-laced outburst.

As a fragile ceasefire with Israel took hold after 12 days of fighting that also included US strikes, Pezeshkian told his counterpart from the United Arab Emirates that the two countries "cannot impose unjust aspirations by force".

Mahmoud Khalil, one of the most prominent leaders of pro-Palestinian protests on US campuses, recounted his experience surviving 104 days in Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention after being targeted for deportation by the Trump administration.

From meeting his spending demand to limiting the participation of Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky, everything is being done to try to avoid the chances of a damaging confrontation with the volatile leader.

An "unidentified" drone struck a military base in Baghdad early Tuesday while another fell in the west of the capital, Iraqi security sources said.