A US naval strike force led by an aircraft carrier was in Middle Eastern waters on Tuesday as Iran vowed to hit back against any strike and President Donald Trump said he believed the Islamic republic still wanted talks.

A US naval strike group led by an aircraft carrier has deployed to Middle Eastern waters, the United States said Monday, as Tehran warned it was ready to hit back at any American attack launched in response to a crackdown on anti-government protests.

While turbulence over Trump's ambitions for Greenland and pressure on the Federal Reserve have provided the most recent support for gold, the precious metal has, for two years, achieved all-time peaks on factors ranging from strong central bank demand and elevated inflation.

US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to reopen the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt during talks in Jerusalem, Israeli media reported Sunday.

A next round of trilateral talks between Ukraine, Russia and the US to halt the war will continue in Abu Dhabi on February 1 a US official said on Saturday.

A group of leaders and senior officials from 19 countries -- including Trump allies from Argentina and Hungary -- gathered on stage with Trump to put their names to the founding charter of the body.

Trump's quest to take control of Greenland, which he said was needed for national and international security, dominated his address to the World Economic Forum as he returned for the first time in six years.

The US president, who will address the annual gathering of global elites on Wednesday, has put the transatlantic alliance to the test with his demand to take over Greenland.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has been invited to join US President Donald Trump's "Board of Peace" aimed at resolving conflicts globally and  oversee governance and reconstruction in Gaza, the Kremlin said Monday.

The White House said there would be a main board, chaired by Trump himself, a Palestinian committee of technocrats meant to govern the war-wracked territory, and a second "executive board" that appears designed to have a more advisory role.

Trump aimed his ire at Denmark, a fellow NATO member, as well as several European countries that have deployed troops in recent days to the vast, mineral-rich territory at the gateway to the Arctic with a population of 57,000.

Two diplomatic sources told AFP on Thursday that the security posture at Qatar's Al-Udeid Airbase had been lowered after a number of personnel had been told to leave on Wednesday over the regional tensions.

The most contentious questions remain Hamas's refusal to publicly commit to full disarmament, a non-negotiable demand from Israel, and Israel's lack of clarity over whether it will fully withdraw its forces from Gaza.

Widespread jamming of the Starlink satellite internet service used by some Iranian opposition members is a likely first in peacetime but impossible to sustain nationwide, experts told AFP.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell confirmed the "unprecedented" subpoenas against the bank in a rare video address on Sunday, which he blasted as part of Trump's pressure campaign for aggressive rate cuts.

President Donald Trump reposted a social media message on Sunday suggesting that US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, born to Cuban immigrant parents, would become the next leader of Cuba.

The communist-run island near Florida has been a US foe and ally of Caracas for decades, but Trump has ramped up his threatening language in recent days -- particularly after Washington toppled Venezuela's leftist leader Nicolas Maduro.

The United States could run Venezuela and tap into its oil reserves for years, President Donald Trump said in an interview published Thursday, less than a week after toppling Nicolas Maduro.

Venezuela's interim president Delcy Rodriguez on Sunday created a commission to seek the release of president Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores, who were removed from power by US forces in Caracas.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday that Israel would not allow arch-foe Iran to restore its ballistic missile programme, just days after US President Donald Trump issued a similar threat.

Having spiked in an initial reaction to the military operation to apprehend Nicolas Maduro in Caracas, oil prices quickly dropped again on expectations that Venezuela -- which sits on about a fifth of the world's oil reserves -- will crank up production quickly.

The United States is ready to work with Venezuela's remaining leaders if they make "the right decision," Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Sunday after an audacious US operation removed the oil-rich country's president, Nicolas Maduro.

After a US military operation that seized Nicolas Maduro, President Donald Trump said he wants to allow American oil companies to head back into Venezuela to tap its massive crude reserves.

Iran has been rocked this week by protests that started in Tehran and have spread to other cities, with at least six people killed in clashes with security forces.

Zohran Mamdani, the young upstart of the US left, was sworn in Thursday to take over as New York mayor for a term sure to see him cross swords with President Donald Trump.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday he still planned to visit New York despite incoming mayor Zohran Mamdani's threats to arrest him in compliance with an International Criminal Court warrant.

Other countries newly subjected to the full travel ban came from some of Africa's poorest countries -- Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, Sierra Leone and South Sudan -- as well as Laos in southeast Asia.

Kyiv's negotiator Rustem Umerov wrote on social media that the marathon diplomacy in the German capital had been "constructive and productive", and "real progress" had been achieved.

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The deadly attack had been "an ambush by a lone ISIS gunman," who was "engaged and killed," US Central Command said on X.

US President Donald Trump said Wednesday that he wants to ensure CNN gets new ownership as part of the Warner Bros Discovery sale, targeting the news outlet he has long feuded with.

Washington, United States - President Donald Trump said Monday he had reached an agreement with President Xi Jinping to allow US chip giant Nvidia to export advanced artificial intelligence chips to China. The announcement marked a significant shift in US export policy for advanced AI chips, which Joe Biden's administration...

Trump's envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner huddled into the early hours with Putin in the Kremlin but reached no breakthrough on halting Europe's worst conflict since World War II.

President Donald Trump has been touting the economy's health, and forecasts had incorrectly predicted the monthly data would show a net rise in employment.

Washington has presented a 28-point draft to end the conflict, later amended after criticism from Kyiv and Europe, which viewed it as heeding to many of Russia's maximalist demands.

"It is very important that Israel maintain a strong and true dialogue with Syria, and that nothing takes place that will interfere with Syria's evolution into a prosperous State,"

US President Donald Trump said Sunday his administration intends to maintain a pause on asylum decisions for "a long time" after an Afghan national allegedly shot two National Guard members near the White House, killing one of them.

US President Donald Trump said Sunday there was a "good chance" of a deal to end the war in Ukraine after the latest US negotiations with Kyiv, as his envoy prepares to travel to Russia for follow-up talks.

President Donald Trump said Wednesday that an Afghan man who fled the Taliban was the suspect in the shooting of two National Guard soldiers near the White House, calling it an "act of terror."

China's stranglehold on the rare earths industry -- from natural reserves and mining through processing and innovation -- is the result of a decades-long drive, now giving Beijing crucial leverage in its trade war with the United States.

An initial US plan which was heavily weighted in Russia's favor has been replaced by one taking in more of Ukraine's interests, and an official familiar with the new version told AFP it was "significantly better."

Chinese leader Xi Jinping pressed the ever-sensitive issue of Taiwan in a phone call Monday with US President Donald Trump, as he stressed the need to build on a fragile trade truce between the two superpowers.

"Too many countries are retreating into geopolitical blocs or the battlegrounds of protectionism," Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney told reporters. He added: "We are not experiencing a transition, but a rupture."

Nearly 200 countries approved the deal by consensus after two weeks of exhaustive negotiations on the fringes of the rainforest, with the notable absence of the US as President Donald Trump shunned the talks.

The Johannesburg gathering is being attended by a host of world leaders including French President Emmanuel Macron, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Chinese Premier Li Qiang, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Saudi Crown Prince said that his kingdom wanted to normalize relations with Israel through US President Donald Trump's Abraham Accords, but first needed a "clear path" to Palestinian statehood.

Trump posted on social media that the vote "acknowledging and endorsing the BOARD OF PEACE, which will be chaired by me...will go down as one of the biggest approvals in the History of the United Nations, (and) will lead to further Peace all over the World."

The draft, which has been revised several times as a result of high-stakes negotiations, "endorses" the plan, which allowed for a fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hamas to take hold on October 10 in the war-wracked Palestinian territory.

Kushner, the son-in-law of US President Donald Trump who helped broker the ceasefire, met Netanyahu in Jerusalem on Monday as part of US efforts to stabilise the truce and lay the groundwork for its next phase.

Paris, France -- There is no clear link between pregnant women taking the common painkiller paracetamol and autism in their children, despite repeated claims otherwise by Donald Trump, according to the most comprehensive review of the existing evidence published Monday. In September, the US president sparked outrage among the medical...