World News

People wade through flood waters on a boat in Hanoi on September 12, 2024, as heavy rains in the aftermath of Typhoon Yagi brought flooding to northern Vietnam. Photo: NHAC NGUYEN / AFP Several Hanoi districts remained inundated on Thursday with the weather agency forecasting little change in the water levels of the Red River over the next 24 hours, as floods and landslides continued to affect areas in northern Vietnam. Vietnam is still reeling from the impact of Typhoon Yagi, the strongest storm to hit Asia this year, which made landfall on Saturday. At least 197 people have been killed and 128 missing since the storm struck, according to the government's disaster management agency. Some 800 people have been injured. "High flooding water levels have flooded riverside and low-lying area...

By Helen Coster, Reuters Republican candidate Donald Trump and Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris. Photo: AFP / SAUL LOEB The US presidential debate between Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris and Republican candidate Donald Trump attracted 57.5 million television viewers across seven TV networks, according to preliminary Nielsen data on Wednesday. Tuesday night's event was the first time the candidates in the 5 November presidential election had met face to face. The viewing figure tops the roughly 51 million people who watched Trump debate then-candidate President Joe Biden in June. It does not capture the full extent of online viewing, which has grown in popularity as traditional TV audiences decline. Nor does it reflect viewers who watched the debate in bars and restaura...

Photo: Warner Bros. Review - Tim Burton's ghostly 1980s hit returns in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. But has the 36-year wait been worth it? Burton's audience was earned with a string of uniquely distinctive hits in the 80s and 90s - Gothic fables including Edward Scissorhands, The Nightmare Before Christmas and Alice in Wonderland. But it's been a while since his last big-screen success, so now he's turned to a belated sequel to his first big hit - Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. He was like a solitary, genius kid playing with toys of his own creation, and endlessly devising spooky Halloween stories to go with them. And the most Tim Burton movie of all was the 1988 hyperactive ghost comedy Beetlejuice. It was funny, it was sweet-natured, it was endlessly inventive, even if by the end the film Bee...

By Madi Chwasta, ABC News Protesters confront police outside the Land Forces 2024 arms fair in Melbourne on 11 September 2024. Photo: WILLIAM WEST / AFP Police are expected to maintain their presence outside the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre today after hundreds of officers clashed with anti-war protesters on Wednesday, resulting in dozens of injuries and arrests. Protest groups, including organisers and anti-war group Disrupt Land Forces, were lined up at dawn outside the Land Forces expo on Wednesday, which has attracted hundreds of defence and weapons companies from around the world. In response, Victoria Police said it assembled the largest contingent of officers to counter the demonstrators since Melbourne hosted the World Economic Forum in 2000. Tensions outside th...

Taylor Swift backed Kamala Harris for president in a post on Instagram. Photo: Robin Van Lonkhuijsen / ANP MAG / ANP via AFP By Kanishka Singh, Reuters Pop megastar Taylor Swift drew more than 9 million "likes" to her Instagram post backing Vice President Kamala Harris for president from celebrities that included Jennifer Aniston, US basketball star Caitlin Clark and Selena Gomez. Soon after Harris, a Democrat, finished debating her Republican rival Donald Trump on Tuesday night, Swift, 34, told her 283 million followers that Harris and running mate Tim Walz would get her vote in the 5 November election. Her post encouraged first-time voters to be sure to register for the election, and a US General Services Administration spokesperson reported on Wednesday receiving 337,826 visitors at ...

King Charles III was hug-bombed by the New Zealand women's rugby team at a Buckingham Palace reception. Rugby world cup champion Ayesha Leti-I'iga asked the King for a hug at the reception. "A hug? Why not?" Charles said. A group hug followed with other members of the Black Ferns joining in and embracing the monarch. A visibly amused Charles said: "I've been battered by a scrum." Later Charles paid tribute to the team. Britain's King Charles III poses for a photograph with members of New Zealand's Black Ferns rugby team at Buckingham Palace, 2024. Photo: AFP "I much appreciated this chance to meet you and to have such a warm hug from most of you, very healing." Charles told the team he was split in his loyalties ahead of their game this weekend. "I hope that you have great success......

A member of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) checks the courtyard of the Al-Jawni (Jaouni) school after an Israeli air strike hit the site, in Nuseirat in the central Gaza Strip on 11 September 2024, amid the ongoing war in the Palestinian territory between Israel and Hamas. Photo: AFP / EYAD BABA The UN Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA said six staffers were killed after two air strikes hit a school in central Gaza on Wednesday, marking what it said was the highest death toll among its staff in a single incident. "Among those killed was the manager of the UNRWA shelter and other team members providing assistance to displaced people," UNRWA said on X. Earlier on Wednesday, the Israeli army said in a statement that it conducted a strike on a comma...

By Daphne Psaledakis and Olena Harmash, Reuters US Secretary of State Antony Blinken (L), Ukraine's Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha (C) and Britain's Foreign Secretary David Lammy (R) attend a joint press conference following their talks in Kyiv on 11 September 2024, amid the Russian invasion on Ukraine. Photo: AFP / ANATOLII STEPANOV The US and British foreign ministers met President Volodymyr Zelensky on a visit interrupted by air raid warnings, unveiling new support but no breakthrough on the long-range strikes into Russia that are desperately wanted by Ukraine. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and British foreign minister David Lammy, in Kyiv at a critical juncture in Ukraine's struggle against Russia, said they talked about Ukraine's war goals and what they could do to help. ...

By Giselle Wakatama, Carly Cook and Bridget Murphy, ABC News Flowers were left at the scene of the bus crash. Photo: AFP / SAEED KHAN A judge has said a Hunter Valley bus driver abandoned responsibility and engaged in risky behaviour in the lead up to a fatal crash, as he handed him a 32-year jail sentence. Brett Andrew Button, 59, was driving wedding guests from the Hunter Valley vineyards to Singleton on 11 June last year when the bus rolled and hit a guard rail at Greta. Button was originally charged with 10 counts of manslaughter but those charges were later downgraded to dangerous driving occasioning death after a plea deal was done with the Department of Public Prosecutions. He had also pleaded guilty to dozens of charges relating to dangerous driving occasioning grievous bodil...

Photo: Composite image: Kamala Harris AFP/Roberto Schmidt. Donald Trump AFP/Mark Peterson. Immediately after the US presidential debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump on Wednesday, the Republican candidate and his supporters complained he'd been unfairly treated by the moderators. "You have two moderators there who acted as agents of the Harris campaign," said David Bossie, a longtime Trump adviser and Republican National Committee member. Trump's chief complaint was that the ABC's David Muir and Linsey Davis fact-checked him on various claims but failed to do the same with Harris. If he had a grounds for complaint on that, he could not reasonably gripe about the moderators giving him space to speak. An RNZ analysis found he took more turns and spoke many more words than Democrat...