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By Joshua McElwee, Reuters After mass, Pope Francis visited a school for children with disabilities in Dili, Timor Leste. Photo: VATICAN MEDIA/Hans Lucas via AFP An estimated 600,000 people in Timor Leste, just under half its population, turned out in the baking heat for a mass with Pope Francis at a coastal park synonymous with the country's long struggle for independence from Indonesia. Filling a wide, dusty area where Indonesian forces buried slain Timorese independence fighters, people arrived as early as 1am and sat on the ground, many braving the sun for hours in temperatures as high as 32 degrees Celsius. Many sheltered under umbrellas decorated in the white and yellow colours of the Vatican flag, while others carried signs asking for blessings and sang local melodies, in one ...

Damaged buildings and debris after Typhoon Yagi hit Ha Long, in Vietnam. Photo: AFP/ Nhac Nguyen By Khanh Vu and Phuong Nguyen, Reuters The death toll in Vietnam from Asia's worst storm this year reached 127 on Tuesday, with torrents of rain triggering floods and landslides, burying homes, sweeping away a bridge and now threatening the capital Hanoi. In several northern provinces, including the suburbs of Hanoi, residents waded through knee-high floods. Brown water cascaded down pedestrian steps. Landslides and floods triggered by the typhoon have killed at least 127 people in northern Vietnam and 54 others were missing, the disaster management agency said on Tuesday in its latest update on the situation. Most of the victims were killed in landslides and flash floods, the agency said, a...

By Nidal al-Mughrabi for Reuters Palestinians inspect the damage at the site of Israeli strikes on a makeshift displacement camp in Mawasi Khan Yunis in the Gaza Strip on 10 September. Photo: BASHAR TALEB Israeli missiles have set ablaze a tent camp for displaced Palestinians in southern Gaza, killing or wounding 65 people, the enclave's civil emergency service says, in what the Israeli military called a strike on a Hamas command centre. The Hamas-run Gaza government media office put the number of fatalities at more than 40. It said that at least 60 others were wounded in the strikes and many remained missing as rescue workers continued their searches early on Tuesday, local time. Residents and medics said the tent encampment near Khan Younis in the Al-Mawasi area, which Israel has d...

By Georgie Hewson, ABC Onstage antics involving celebrities have become talking points of the VMAs in the early 2000s and 2010s. Photo: AFP / Timothy A Clark, Kevin Winter / Getty Images via AFP, Christopher Polk / Getty Images via AFP From a surprise pregnancy reveal to Madonna and Britney's infamous kiss to Lady Gaga singing while covered in fake blood, the MTV Video Music Awards have hosted memorable performances. This year, for the 40th MTV VMAs, audiences will actually be able to vote on what they think was the most iconic performance in a new category. But it is not just the planned portions of the evening that has put the show in the spotlight over the past four decades. It is also the place where many famous celebrity feuds, bizarre interruptions and political statements hav...