WORLD

Yoon, suspended from office by parliament since Saturday, faces concurrent probes over alleged insurrection by both South Korean prosecutors and a joint team of police, defense ministry and anti-corruption investigators.

Pressure has been growing on Nobel Peace Prize winner Yunus -- appointed the country's "chief adviser" after the student-led uprising that toppled ex-premier Sheikh Hasina in August -- to set a date.

Washington has long been Taipei's most important ally and biggest arms supplier -- angering Beijing, which claims Taiwan as part of its own territory.

A police report states that 26-year-old Luigi Mangione, who led authorities on a six-day manhunt only to be arrested in a McDonald's restaurant in Pennsylvania, was found with a "black 3D-printed pistol and a black silencer" in his backpack.

China's foreign minister Wang Yi told his Egyptian counterpart on Friday that Beijing is "deeply concerned" about the situation in Syria, as the two top diplomats met in the Chinese capital.

Russia has escalated its strikes on Ukraine's energy infrastructure, plunging hundreds of thousands into temporary blackouts as temperatures hit -5 degrees Celsius (23 Fahrenheit).

Israel seized the demilitarized zone on the strategic plateau on Sunday, just hours after Syrian rebels swept president Bashar al-Assad from power.

Rife with nationalist sentiment and strident anti-communism, vitriol is often focused at liberal politicians -- accused of being North Korean agents in league with Pyongyang to destabilise South Korean democracy.

Hailing it as a "historic agreement", Erdogan said he hoped the deal would be "the first step towards a new beginning based on peace and cooperation between Somalia and Ethiopia".

Russia has been gripped by a cycle of rising prices since it launched its military offensive on Ukraine almost three years ago.

The South Korean leader is barred from foreign travel as part of a probe into his inner circle over the dramatic events of December 3-4 that stunned Seoul's allies and threw the country into some of its deepest political turmoil in years.

The navy vessels, along with 34 Chinese aircraft, were spotted near Taiwan in the 24 hours to 6:00 am (2200 GMT) Thursday, according to the defense ministry's daily tally.

VOA has reach around the world, with programming in a slew of African, Asian and European languages, including Somali, Dari and French.

Traditional media companies the world over are in a battle for survival as precious advertising dollars are hoovered up online.

Breathless local news reports have amplified the anxious sky-gazing and wild speculation -- interspersing blurry, dark clips from social media with irate locals calling for action.

The latest bloodshed occurred just hours after the UN General Assembly called for an immediate ceasefire in the devastated territory.

Rescuers were working Wednesday to find people under the rubble of a building destroyed in a Russian attack the day before that killed eight people, Ukrainian officials said.

Philippine Vice-President Sara Duterte partied with journalists Wednesday as she thumbed her nose at an official inquiry into allegations she plotted to assassinate President Ferdinand Marcos, her estranged ally.

Malaria mortality has fallen back to levels seen before the Covid-19 crisis, the WHO said Wednesday, but called for faster progress against the disease that killed nearly some 597,000 people last year.

Argentine President Javier Milei promised Tuesday that inflation will soon be "little more than a bad memory" and vowed to pursue a free trade deal with the United States next year.

South Korean police said Wednesday that security guards were blocking a raid on President Yoon Suk Yeol's offices to investigate his brief imposition of martial law, with the opposition party accusing the presidential staff of illegally protecting an insurrectionist.

China has expanded military drills around Taiwan aimed at drawing "a red line" for the next US president, Taipei authorities said on Wednesday, branding Beijing a "troublemaker".

A ferocious fire tore through Malibu on Tuesday, destroying at least seven homes in one of California's most desirable areas, and forcing thousands to evacuate.

Netanyahu, who has repeatedly sought to delay his appearance in court, is the first sitting prime minister of Israel to face a criminal trial.

A day after Yoon himself was hit with a travel ban, his party was meanwhile forging a "resignation roadmap" that reportedly could see him step down in February or March before fresh elections, while the opposition plans to organize an impeachment vote every Saturday.

Taiwanese forces were on high alert in anticipation of Beijing's People's Liberation Army (PLA) staging war games in response to Lai's US stopovers and call with Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson.

The 20th king of the Bamoun people, Mouhammad Nabil Mfourifoum Mbombo Njoya, stood up from his ornate throne -- a replica of the original, now at a German museum -- for the ancient ritual to get under way.

Former US president Donald Trump -- who returns to the White House next month -- unleashed a grueling trade war with China during his first term in office, lambasting alleged intellectual property theft and other "unfair" practices.

The Ukrainian officer, who uses the callsign "Goth", was speaking to AFP in the eastern Donetsk region, where Russia made in November its largest gains in a month since March 2022.