RAFAH -- The top UN court ordered Israel Friday to halt military operations in Rafah, a landmark ruling likely to increase international pressure for a ceasefire more than seven months into the war sparked by Hamas's October 7 attack. The International Court of Justice also demanded the immediate release of all hostages still held by Palestinian militants, hours after the Israeli military announced troops had recovered the bodies of three more of the captives from northern Gaza. The Hague-b

BANGKOK -- A Malaysian woman whose six relatives and a friend were injured on a Singapore Airlines flight hit by deadly turbulence this week said on Friday they had only seconds to react before the plane started to plunge. One passenger died and more than 100 were injured when the Boeing 777-300ER fell 1,800 meters in just a few minutes during the final hours of its journey from London to Singapore on Tuesday. Passengers and crew on the flight sustained skull, brain, and spine injuries as they w

When he was a 20-week-old embryo -- before he even had a real name -- Choi Hee-woo became one of the world's youngest-ever plaintiffs by joining a groundbreaking climate lawsuit against South Korea. His case, known as "Woodpecker et al. vs. South Korea" after Choi's in utero nickname, seeks to prove Seoul's modest climate goals -- reducing carbon emissions by 40 percent of 2018 levels by 2030 -- are a violation of their constitutionally guaranteed human rights. In Asia&#

TEHRAN -- Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi was confirmed dead on Monday after search and rescue teams found his crashed helicopter in a fog-shrouded mountain region, sparking mourning in the Islamic republic. Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has ultimate authority in Iran, declared five days of mourning and assigned vice president Mohammad Mokhber, 68, to assume interim duties ahead of elections within 50 days. Earlier Monday, state TV announced that "the servant of the Iranian nat

TEHRAN -- Search and rescue teams were scouring a fog-shrouded mountain area of northwest Iran Monday after President Ebrahim Raisi's helicopter went missing in what state media described as an accident. Fears grew for the 63-year-old ultraconservative after contact was lost with the aircraft carrying him as well as Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian and others in East Azerbaijan province on Sunday, reports said. After hours of searching, state TV reported early Monday that a Turkish

Tech billionaire Elon Musk launched Sunday his Starlink service on Indonesia's resort island of Bali as the country aims to extend internet to its remote areas. Millions of people in Indonesia, a vast archipelago of more than 17,000 islands, are not currently hooked up to reliable internet services. Musk, making his first visit to the Southeast Asian nation, inaugurated the satellite unit services at a clinic in Bali's capital Denpasar on Sunday afternoon. He also signed an agreement o

North Korea has test-fired a tactical ballistic missile equipped with a "new autonomous navigation system," state media said Saturday, with leader Kim Jong-un vowing to boost the country's nuclear force. Kim oversaw the Friday test-launch into the East Sea, also known as the Sea of Japan, on a mission to evaluate the "accuracy and reliability of the autonomous navigation system," Pyongyang's official Korean Central News Agency said. The launch was the latest in a st

SAN FRANCISCO -- OpenAI on Monday released a higher performing and even more human-like version of the artificial intelligence technology that underpins its popular generative tool ChatGPT, making it free to all users. The update to OpenAI's flagship product landed a day before Google is expected to make its own announcements about Gemini, the search engine giant's own AI tool that competes with ChatGPT head-on. "We're very, very excited to bring GPT-4o to all of our free use

Hamas said its delegation was heading to Cairo on Saturday to resume Gaza truce talks, as the United Nations warned that Israel's threatened assault on the city of Rafah could produce a "bloodbath." Foreign mediators have been waiting for the Palestinian militant group to respond to a proposal to halt fighting for 40 days and exchange hostages for Palestinian prisoners. "The only thing standing between the people of Gaza and a ceasefire is Hamas," US Secretary of State A

JERUSALEM -- Hopes rose Monday for a long sought-after cease-fire and hostage release deal after almost seven months of war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas. Washington's top diplomat said he was "hopeful" Hamas would accept the offer, which his British counterpart said could see the release of thousands of Palestinian prisoners. After meeting in Cairo, the Hamas delegation left Egypt and returned to Qatar "to discuss the ideas and the proposal ... and we are keen to respond as qu

The European Union on Friday added Chinese-founded online retailer Shein to its list of digital companies that are big enough to come under stricter safety curbs. The company joins Facebook, TikTok, X, YouTube and others on a list of "very large online platforms" which have more than 45 million monthly active users in the European Union. From the end of August -- four months after the designation -- Shein will have to abide by tougher rules set out in the Digital Services Act (DSA),

PARIS -- Climate change caused by carbon dioxide emissions already in the atmosphere will shrink global gross domestic product in 2050 by about $38 trillion, or almost a fifth, no matter how aggressively humanity cuts carbon pollution, researchers said Wednesday. But slashing greenhouse gas emissions as quickly as possible remains crucial to avoid even more devastating economic impacts after midcentury, they reported in the journal Nature. Economic fallout from climate change, the study shows, c

SAN FRANCISCO -- Meta's oversight board said Tuesday it is scrutinizing the social media titan's deepfake porn policies, through the lens of two cases. The move by what is referred to as a Meta "supreme court" for content moderation disputes comes just months after the widespread sharing of lewd artificial intelligence-generated images of megastar Taylor Swift on X, formerly Twitter. The Meta board picked its two cases, regarding images shared on Instagram and Facebook, to &q

Countries around the world condemned Iran's strikes on Israel late Saturday, warning the attack threatened to further destabilise the Middle East. Here are some of the main reactions so far: US - US President Joe Biden promised "ironclad" support for Israel after holding an urgent meeting with top security officials. "I just met with my national security team for an update on Iran's attacks against Israel. Our commitment to Israel's security against threats from Iran and its

After a winning debut on Wall Street last month, Donald Trump's media group has suffered a bruising retreat, denting the Republican candidate's wealth as he faces legal challenges. Since entering public markets on March 26, Trump Media and Technology Group has seen its market value plummet from around $11 billion to under $4.5 billion. That's an unhappy reversal for the former White House inhabitant and current presidential candidate, who faces around a half billion dollars in civ