World News

Gisele Pelicot, 71, has become a feminist icon in France since the trial of Dominique Pelicot and 50 other men opened last month. Photo: CHRISTOPHE SIMON/AFP Gisele Pelicot, whose ex-husband and dozens of other men are on trial in France accused of raping her, said she was "broken" by her ordeal, but also "determined" to help other women. The 71-year-old has become a feminist icon in France since the trial of Dominique Pelicot and 50 other men opened last month in the southern French city of Avignon. The case has sparked horror, protests and a debate about male violence in French society. "I am a woman who is completely broken," Gisele Pelicot told the court, adding that she wanted to "change society" in terms of how it deals with sexual assault. Gisele Pelicot insisted from the start t...

Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Apia, Samoa. Photo: Commonwealth Secretariat / Supplied Climate change, the Middle East, and the importance of small nations on the world stage are being picked as major talking points for the Commonwealth meeting in Samoa. The Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, CHOGM for short, has been held every two years since 1973. King Charles attended the last one in Rwanda in 2022 - standing in for his mother just months before her death. This year about 6000 people are expected in Samoa, the first time a small Pacific nation has hosted. A majority of attendees - 33 of the 56 countries - are small states. Otago University Professor of International Relations Robert Patman said climate change would be high on the agenda for them. "I think climate...

By Ece Toksabay and Mert Ozkan for Reuters Turkish police officers gather in Kahramankazan, north of Ankara on October 23, 2024, near the gate of the Turkish Aerospace Industries, after a huge explosion outside the headquarters. Photo: AFP Four people were killed and 14 others wounded in an attack at the Turkish Aerospace Industries' headquarters on Wednesday, the government said, and witnesses said they heard gunfire and a loud explosion at the site near Ankara. Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said two attackers were killed in what he called a terrorist attack, adding three of the injured are in critical condition. TV broadcasters earlier showed footage of armed assailants entering the TUSAS building. "Two terrorists were neutralised in the terror attack on the TUSAS Ankara Kahraman...

King Charles III and his wife Queen Camilla have landed in Apia, Samoa. 23 October 2024 Photo: Screengrab / YouTube / The Sun King Charles III and his wife Queen Camilla have landed in Apia, Samoa. The monarch has been greeted by a guard of honour at the airport before being escorted to his accommodation in Siumu. Local villagers have lined the roadsides with lanterns to welcome His Royal Highness. King Charles will deliver an address to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) on Friday. The royal office said as well as attending CHOGM, the King's programme in Samoa will be supportive of one of the meeting's key themes, "a resilient environment", and the meeting's focus on oceans. The King and Queen were to be formally welcomed by an 'Ava Fa'atupu ceremony before meeting pe...

Russia's President Vladimir Putin meets with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the BRICS summit in Kazan on October 22, 2024. Photo: AFP / Pool / Alexander Zemlianichenko Chinese President Xi Jinping told Russia's Vladimir Putin that the international situation was gripped by chaos but that Beijing's strategic partnership with Moscow was a force for stability amid the most significant changes seen in a century. Xi and Putin in May pledged a "new era" of partnership between the two most powerful rivals of the United States, which they cast as an aggressive Cold War hegemon sowing chaos across the world. "At present, the world is going through changes unseen in a hundred years, the international situation is intertwined with chaos," Xi told Putin in the Russian city of Kaza...

Harvey Weinstein. Photo: AFP / Pool / Etienne Laurent By Elizabeth Wagmeister, CNN Harvey Weinstein has been diagnosed with bone cancer, a source close to the incarcerated producer tells CNN. Weinstein's specific diagnosis is chronic myeloid leukaemia, a form of cancer of the bone marrow, the source says, adding that he is undergoing treatment at Rikers Island in New York. Weinstein's longtime spokesperson, Juda Engelmayer, declined to comment on Weinstein's diagnosis. His attorney, Arthur Aidala, did not immediately respond to CNN's request for comment. Weinstein's prison consultant and authorised legal healthcare representative in New York state, Craig Rothfeld, shot down speculation regarding Weinstein's diagnosis. "It is both troubling and unacceptable that such private and confiden...

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken boards a plane as he departs Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, on 21 October, 2024, en route to the Middle East. Photo: Nathan Howard / POOL / AFP By Humeyra Pamuk, Maayan Lubell and Nidal al-Mughrabi, Reuters US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has pressed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to capitalise on the killing of Hamas' leader by securing the release of the 7 October attack hostages and ending the war in Gaza. After repeated abortive attempts to broker a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, Blinken was making his 11th trip to the Middle East since the Gaza war erupted - and the last before a presidential election that could upend US policy. Blinken was also seeking ways to defuse an escalating spillover conflict between Israel and the Ir...

A checkpoint near the Hamrin Mountains, where a raid has seen Iraqi forces kill nine Islamic State commanders (file photo). Photo: AFP / LAURENT PERPIGNA IBAN Iraqi forces have killed nine Islamic State (IS) group commanders, including the jihadists' top figure in the country, Baghdad announced Tuesday, with the Pentagon saying two US troops were injured during the raid. Iraq's Joint Operations Command said in a statement that counterterrorism forces "killed nine terrorists, among them the so-called governor of Iraq" for IS, naming him as Jassim al-Mazrouei Abu Abdel Qader. The statement said the raid in the northern Hamrin Mountains was carried out "with technical support" and intelligence provided by the US-led anti-jihadist coalition, and said that "large quantities of weapons" were ...

By James Redmayne for Reuters King Charles and Queen Camilla are on a three-day visit to Samoa as part of CHOGM. Photo: AFP King Charles III will be offered the title of high chief in Samoa during a three-day visit starting on Wednesday and be shown the impact of rising sea levels due to climate change. Lenatai Victor Tamapua, a Samoan chief and member of parliament, said he planned to offer the title of Tui Taumeasina to the monarch during a traditional ceremonial welcome to the king and Queen Camilla on Thursday. He will later lead the king through a walkway on a mangrove reserve highlighting the impact of climate change on the Pacific nations and its communities. "The king tide today is about twice that it was 20, 30 years ago, and that is affecting our land, and it's eating away ...

ABBA singer Bjorn Ulvaeus photographed in Stockholm, Sweden, 2023. Photo: AFP / Henrik Montgomery Thousands of artists including ABBA singer Bjorn Ulvaeus, Hollywood actress Julianne Moore and Nobel laureate Kazuo Ishiguro have signed a statement warning about the unlicensed use of artificial intelligence. Some 11,500 stars of music, literature, screen and stage had put their names to the statement by Tuesday (local time), as fears mount over tech companies using existing creative works to train up AI models without permission from their original creators. "The unlicensed use of creative works for training generative AI is a major, unjust threat to the livelihoods of the people behind those works, and must not be permitted," read the brief statement. In Hollywood, studios have been expe...