World News

By Andrew Mills and Nidal Al-Mughrabi, Reuters Photo: JACK GUEZ / AFP Mediators to resume talks next week New US proposal builds on previous agreements Biden administration official says talks in Doha most constructive in months Israel says Netanyahu, Blinken to meet on Monday Regional escalation at stake Gaza ceasefire talks in Doha paused on Friday, with negotiators to meet again next week seeking an agreement to end fighting between Israel and Hamas and free remaining hostages, as US President Joe Biden said "we're not there yet". In a joint statement, the US, Qatar and Egypt said Washington had presented a new proposal that built on points of agreement over the past week, closing gaps in a way that could allow rapid implementation of a deal. Mediators would keep working on the...

Photo: AFP / Roman Pilipey An influential aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that the West and the US-led NATO alliance had helped to plan Ukraine's surprise attack on Russia's Kursk region, something Washington has denied. The lightning incursion, the biggest into Russia by a foreign power since World War II, began on 6 August when thousands of Ukrainian troops crossed Russia's western border in a major embarrassment for Putin's military. Ukraine said the incursion was needed to force Russia, which sent its forces into Ukraine in February 2022, to start "fair" peace talks. But the United States and Western powers, eager to avoid direct military confrontation with Russia, said Ukraine had not given advance notice and that Washington was not involved, though weaponry ...

A helicopter with water in the fight to put out fires ravaging Turkey. Photo: Facebook / Bekir Karacabey Fires raging on the Turkish Gallipoli peninsula have been brought under control on Friday local time, according to a report. However, images of the site in northwest Turkey showed soot-blackened gravestones in a scorched garden looking out over the Aegean Sea, the Associated Press reported. #Gallipoli #Çanakkale Latest update: The fire has been fully contained, though only after great effort by Turkish fire crews. Most of North Anzac sector burnt out. Some spot fires still springing up. pic.twitter.com/ZS9XrRw8Ih— Bill Sellars (@BillSellars2) August 16, 2024 Forty-five planes and helicopters, along with some 1400 forestry personnel, have been involved in trying to contain the wil...

By Olivia Willis of ABC Mpox virus particles. Photo: SERGII IAREMENKO/SCIENCE PHOTO L The rapid surge of mpox in multiple African countries has prompted the World Health Organization to sound its highest level of alert. On Wednesday, the UN agency declared a global health emergency in response to a severe outbreak of the viral disease in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), which has spread to at least four neighbouring countries where it has not been reported before. The WHO announcement follows a decision earlier this week by the African Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to also declare mpox a public health emergency. More than 15,600 mpox cases and 537 deaths have been detected in the DRC this year, a situation the WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Gebrselassie...

Haneda Airport with few passengers in Tokyo, Japan, 16 August 16, 2024. Photo: NORIAKI SASAKI / Yomiuri / The Yomiuri Shimbun via AFP Japan grounded hundreds of flights and advised nearly 10,000 households to evacuate in some areas near Tokyo on Friday, as a strong typhoon caused power blackouts in the middle of a major summer holiday week. Typhoon Ampil, categorised as "very strong" by the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA), was situated off the Pacific coast of Japan's main island at 8.50am (11.50am NZ time). The agency has two higher categories - "very strong" and "violent". The typhoon is expected to head towards the eastern region of Kanto, which includes the capital, on Friday afternoon. Ampil has wind speeds of 45 metres per second with maximum gust of 60 metres per second (216km/...

By Chris Baraniuk of BBC That murky brown strip of plastic usually made with polluting heavy metals may not be around for much longer. Photo: GOLUBOVY As he slipped the key card into the reader on his hotel room door and tried the handle - to no avail - he realised what he had done. For years, Steven Murdoch, a security researcher at University College London, had taken care not to put tickets or cards with magnetic stripes in his pocket next to his smartphone. This is because the magnets in smartphones are sometimes strong enough to wipe the data on magnetic stripes. But so-called magstripe hotel key cards are rare these days, increasingly superseded by contactless cards with radio frequency identification (RFID) chips inside them. As such, during his hotel visit in January this yea...

By Jonathan Head, Thanyarat Doksone and Kelly Ng of BBC Paetongtarn Shinawatra. Photo: JACK TAYLOR / AFP Thailand's parliament has picked Paetongtarn Shinawatra, the daughter of billionaire tycoon and former leader Thaksin, as prime minister. At 37, she will be the country's youngest PM and the second woman in the post, after her aunt Yingluck. Her selection comes just two days after former PM Srettha Thavisin was dismissed by a constitutional court. Both are from the Pheu Thai Party, which came second at the 2023 election but formed a ruling coalition. Paetongtarn faces the difficult task of reviving Thailand's stalled economy and avoiding the military coups and court interventions which have deposed four previous administrations led by her family. Paetongtarn, who received 319 endo...

Fires have been raging across multiple areas of Türkiye. Photo: Supplied / @BekirKaracabeyOGM on Facebook Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has warned of the possibility fires raging towards Gallipoli may reach the graves of Australian soldiers at Anzac Cove. "Our thoughts today are also with our friends in Türkiye. We understand there are efforts underway to control fires that are burning on the Gallipoli Peninsula," Albanese said in a press conference on Friday. "Gallipoli is, of course, sacred ground to both of our countries. "Some 60,000 Australians served at Gallipoli during the eight-month campaign, and 8700 Australians lost their lives," he said, referring to the Gallipoli campaign of World War I. "Eighteen thousand were wounded during the campaign. And there were more t...

Search "bama rush" on TikTok and this is what you get. Photo: TikTok Depending on the corners of TikTok you might inhabit, the curious American cultural phenomena of rush week might be filling your feed. (Not on TikTok? Proceed anyway. This is interesting). Rush week, and specifically rush week at the University of Alabama, is the pinnacle of over-the-top university life in the US that will leave many a New Zealander scratching their head. It's a massive drama that now plays out on social media where girls new to university vie for coveted invitations to a sorority, a house and organisation of female students that often provides a leg up in college social life and the career to follow. "The craziness is quite intense. You can feel down about yourself during rush week and rush week can s...

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and his Australian counterpart Anthony Albanese have raised the issue that a cyberattack on one country could trigger a joint co-operation under trans-Tasman agreements. The discussion of cyber-warfare was one of the main issues raised by the two leaders at a joint press conference in Canberra on Friday. Luxon said the nature of modern warfare had changed, and while it would require a "pretty severe cyberattack" to trigger Article IV of the ANZUS Treaty, which recognises an "armed attack in the Pacific Area on any parties" would be dangerous to the others, it was now a factor that needed to be considered. Albanese said its military and signals defences were being tested by cyberattacks, which can now have "as great an impact as an attack from traditional me...