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By Elizabeth Pineau and Michel Rose, Reuters Prime Minister Michel Barnier was expected to tender his resignation. Photo: AFP / ALAIN JOCARD French lawmakers passed a no-confidence vote against the government on Wednesday, throwing the European Union's second-biggest economic power deeper into a crisis that threatens its capacity to legislate and tame a massive budget deficit. Far-right and left-wing lawmakers joined forces to back a no-confidence motion against Prime Minister Michel Barnier, with a majority 331 votes in support of the motion. Barnier now has to tender his resignation and that of his government to President Emmanuel Macron, making his minority government's three-month tenure the shortest lived in France's Fifth Republic beginning in 1958. He is expected to do so on ...

By Lilit Marcus, CNN Ed Sheeran. Photo: Dia Dipasupil / Getty Images via AFP He has won multiple Grammys and racked up nine Billboard Top 10 Hits, but musician Ed Sheeran will soon add another trophy to his collection - becoming the first-ever Western artist to perform a concert in Bhutan. On 24 January 2025, the British singer-songwriter will perform at Changlimithang Stadium in Bhutan's capital of Thimphu. "Kuzuzampola!" Sheeran said in an Instagram post announcing the Bhutan concert. That means "hello" in the country's Dzongkha language. "I've heard wonderful, wonderful things about Bhutan," he added. A landlocked Buddhist monarchy of about 700,000 people, Bhutan began slowly opening to the world in the 1970s. Travellers who wish to visit are charged a $100-per-day fee as part of ...

By Adel Fruean, ABC Samoa reporter and Pacific Local Journalism Network's Nick Sas Tavita Pili says he can smell the fuel from the sunk ship and the tides bring it to shore. Photo: ABC News: Adel Fruean Tavita Pili can't see the ship, but he can smell it. Standing on rocks on the outskirts of his home village of Tafitoala, Samoa, Mr Pili points to the spot where the diesel comes in, at the back of the village, hidden by mangroves. It's about a kilometre or two from where it happened; what villagers are now calling "the incident". Thursday marks two months to the day since the Royal New Zealand Navy vessel Manawanui ran aground and sank off the coast of Tafitoala. And two months on, local villagers say they still have no answers. "We are worried," he said. "We can still smell the fuel...