World News

By Jeff Mason and Tim Reid, Reuters US President Joe Biden shakes hands with incoming president Donald Trump. Photo: SAUL LOEB/AFP Republican Donald Trump returned to the White House for the first time since winning last week's election and sat down for talks about the looming transfer of power with longtime political rival President Joe Biden. "Welcome, welcome back," Biden told Trump at the start of their meeting in front of a roaring fireplace. He promised Trump a smooth transition of power and to do all he could "to make sure you're accommodated." "It'll be as smooth as it can get," Trump said. It was a sharp contrast to the criticism the two men have hurled at each other for years. Their respective teams hold vastly different positions on policies from climate change to Russia t...

Women in the US protest president-elect Donald Trump ahead of his first presidency in 2017. Photo: AFP A potential protest movement is emerging online - or at least it is being talked about online - following Donald Trump's re-election to the US presidency. Some American women on social media say they are taking inspiration from the South Korean feminist movement known as 4B where women "decentralise" men in their lives. This means no heterosexual dating, sex or marriage and saying no to childbearing. Not only is it viewed as a protest, but one born out of necessity, according to those who say they are adopting the stance. Trump's re-election could mean abortion rights in the US will be further eroded. Some also fear that the fringe conservative blueprint Project 2025, which advocates f...

British writer and Booker Prize 2024 shortlisted author Samantha Harvey poses with her book 'Orbital' during the Booker Prize 2024 Award photo call event, at the Southbank centre, in central London, on 11 November, 2024. Photo: HENRY NICHOLLS / AFP Orbital, a slim poetic novel following six astronauts over a day onboard the International Space Station, has won the Booker Prize for 2024. The novel by British author Samantha Harvey was the shortest of the six books shortlisted for the prize at just 136 pages. The award was announced at a ceremony in London. The win was something of a surprise. Most critics and bookmakers had installed James by American author Percival Everett, the story of the slave in Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn, as the favourite. Recently the Booker Prize, which bills...

By Luc Cohen, Reuters A judge pauses Donald Trump's conviction proceedings for a week. Photo: CHIP SOMODEVILLA / Getty Images via AFP A New York state judge paused for a week further action on Donald Trump's conviction stemming from hush money paid to a porn star, a document made public on Wednesday showed. Justice Juan Merchan delayed at least through until 19 November any decision on whether to vacate Trump's conviction due to the US Supreme Court's decision in July that presidents are immune from prosecution involving their official acts. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office had said it agreed with a defence request to pause proceedings to consider how to approach the case in light of Trump's 5 November election win and looming inauguration in January 2025. Trump in Ma...

Bill Ramasi and his wife Vitauna at their village on Vanua Levu that is sinking beneath the sea Photo: The Detail/Sharon Brettkelly People in the Fijian village of Kiobo use kayaks to get around when the water rushes in. They must move to escape rising sea levels, but it's expensive and there's no help coming. At the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Samoa this year, climate change was high on the agenda, the big talking point for politicians and NGOs. After spending a week there, hearing how Pacific Island nations were worst affected, The Detail's Sharon Brettkelly went to Fiji to see what was being done to help people. She wanted to visit the village of Vunidogoloa to find out what life was like there, 10 years after it was moved to a new site. That visit couldn't be arrang...

By David Kirton, Reuters A police car is seen at the Zhuhai Sports Centre, a day after a car rammed through the site killing dozens in Zhuhai, in south China's Guangdong province. Photo: HECTOR RETAMAL/AFP A driver rammed his car into a crowd at a sports centre in southern China, killing 35 people and severely injuring 43 in one of the deadliest attacks in contemporary Chinese history. Chinese authorities took almost 24 hours to officially disclose the incident, which took place on Monday night (local time) in Zhuhai, a city of about 2.5 million people in southern China near Macau. Images and videos showing dozens of people knocked to the ground and a car fleeing from the scene, which circulated on China's major social media platforms on Monday night, were swiftly censored. Angry com...

By Gram Slattery and Steve Holland, Reuters Donald Trump and Marco Rubio (pictured during the election campaign). Photo: RYAN M. KELLY/AFP Donald Trump is expected to tap US Senator Marco Rubio to be his secretary of state, sources said, putting the Florida-born politician on track to be the first Latino to serve as America's top diplomat once the Republican takes office in January. Rubio was arguably the most hawkish option on Trump's shortlist for secretary of state, and he has in past years advocated for a muscular foreign policy with respect to America's geopolitical foes, including China, Iran and Cuba. Over the last several years he has softened some of his stances to align more closely with Trump's views. The president-elect accuses past US presidents of leading America into c...

Queen Camilla returned to work after a chest infection. Photo: AFP / Pool / Manaui Faulalo Britain's Queen Camilla said she was "on the mend" as she returned to work on after suffering from a chest infection. Camilla, 77, was forced to cancel a number of engagements and missed last weekend's Remembrance Sunday event after falling ill, but was well enough to host a reception at her Clarence House home for authors shortlisted for the annual Booker Prize. "I'm on the mend, these things always take a bit of time to get rid of," she told author Percival Everett at the event. "You think you've got rid of it, then they just sort of hang on for a little bit, but hopefully I'm on the mend now." Camilla's diary of events has been shortened this week to help her recovery, and she will miss the Lon...

By Andrew MacAskill and Muvija M, Reuters Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, the senior cleric of the Church of England, resigned "in sorrow". Photo: MARVIN RECINOS/AFP Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, the senior cleric of the Church of England, resigned "in sorrow" on Wednesday, saying he had failed to ensure a proper investigation into allegations of abuse by a volunteer at Christian summer camps decades ago. Welby, also spiritual leader of 85 million Anglicans worldwide, had faced calls to resign after a report last week found he had taken insufficient action to stop arguably the Church's most prolific serial abuser. In his resignation letter, Welby said he must take "personal and institutional responsibility" for lack of action on the "heinous abuses". "The last few day...

By Lia Harris and Sean Tarek Goodwin, ABC News Six people were killed in the stabbing rampage at Westfield Shopping Centre in Bondi Junction on 13 April. Photo: ABC News: Brendan Esposito A coronial inquest into the Bondi Junction mass stabbing will investigate potential failings in the mental health system and shopping centre security protocols Joel Cauchi fatally stabbed six people and seriously injured several others inside the Westfield shopping centre in Sydney's eastern suburbs on 13 April An extensive coronial inquest will begin in April next year The man who fatally stabbed six people in Bondi Junction had not been taking medication to treat his mental illness, prompting his parents to confiscate his hunting knives, a coroner's court has heard. The NSW Coroners Court on ...