World

Peruvian authorities said Tuesday they have tightened security at the Inca citadel of Machu Picchu after tourists there were filmed dispersing what were believed to be human ashes.

Last week, citizens in Peru were outraged by a non-dated video on Tiktok in which a woman at the tourist site took ashes from a plastic bag and threw them in the air, then hugged another woman.

Checking imported books, removing texts from libraries and distributing lists of banned titles -- Taliban authorities are working to remove "un-Islamic" and anti-government literature from circulation.

The efforts are led by a commission established under the Ministry of Information and Culture soon after the Taliban swept to power in 2021 and implemented their strict interpretation of Islamic law, or sharia.

It was an unlucky day in the Burmese calendar, farmer Yar Swe Kyin warned her husband in July, begging him not to go out to check on their crops.

Hours later he was dead, killed by one of the countless landmines laid by both sides in Myanmar's three brutal years of civil war.

Gunshots, screams, eerie laughter: South Korea's border island Ganghwa is being bombarded nightly with blood-curdling sounds, part of a new campaign by the nuclear-armed North that is driving residents to despair.

Before it started, 56-year-old Kim Yun-suk fell asleep to the hum of insects and woke to the chirping of birds. Now, she is kept awake every night by what sounds like the soundtrack of a low-budget horror movie at top volume.

A study published Tuesday estimates that tax dodging enabled by the United States, the United Kingdom, and other wealthy nations is costing countries around the world nearly half a trillion dollars in revenue each year, underscoring the urgent need for global reforms to prevent rich individuals and large corporations from shirking their obligations.

The new study, conducted by the Tax Justice Network (TJN), finds that "the combined costs of cross-border tax abuse by multinational companies and by individuals with undeclared assets offshore stands at an estimated $492 billion." Of that total in lost revenue, corporate tax dodging is responsible for more than $347 billion, according to TJN's calculations.

Brazilian police said they arrested four soldiers on Tuesday over an alleged plot to assassinate then President-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in a 2022 "coup."

The four "were arrested in Rio, where they were participating in the security operation for the G20 leaders' meeting," a federal police source told AFP, adding that a police officer was also taken into custody.

Booming Indigenous Maori "haka" chants rang out across New Zealand's capital on Tuesday, as tens of thousands rallied against a conservative push to redefine the nation's founding treaty.

More than 35,000 demonstrators poured into the harborside city of Wellington, police said, shutting down busy streets as their spirited procession inched its way towards parliament.

G20 leaders met in Rio de Janeiro on Monday for talks on climate change, ongoing wars in Ukraine, Gaza and Lebanon, and more, at a forum that highlighted differences between world powers but also delivered some successes.

Here are five key takeaways from the summit:

Floodwaters reaching more than four meters high swamped thousands of houses in the storm-battered northern Philippines on Tuesday after rivers overflowed following heavy rain and a dam release.

Typhoon Man-yi drenched swaths of the Philippines over the weekend, swelling the Cagayan river and tributaries, and forcing the release of water from Magat Dam.

A Hong Kong court on Tuesday jailed all 45 defendants convicted of subversion in the city's largest national security trial, with "mastermind" Benny Lai receiving the longest term of 10 years.

International condemnation was swift, with Western countries and rights groups slamming the sentencing as evidence of the erosion of political freedoms in the city since Beijing imposed a security law in 2020.

Spain's King Felipe VI said Tuesday he and his wife Queen Letizia will next week return to the epicenter of the country's catastrophic floods, where survivors heckled and hurled mud at them during their last visit.

"We do not yet have the date or the itinerary, but yes it will take place," the king told reporters during a visit to Betera in the eastern Valencia region where he met with soldiers taking part in the relief work following the October 29 disaster.

A U.S. lawmaker critical of COP29 host Azerbaijan said he was nearly assaulted when he attended the climate talks in what he called an orchestrated attack by the government.

"It was no question that if it wasn't for the fact that security that the embassy hired protected me, I would have been in the hospital," Representative Frank Pallone told reporters on his return to Washington on Monday.

Dozens of lawmakers from across the world called Tuesday for the immediate and unconditional release of pro-democracy activist Jimmy Lai, before he is due to give evidence in his collusion trial in Hong Kong.

Parliamentarians and foreign affairs experts from at least 22 countries and the European Parliament signed an open letter, expressing concern about the 76-year-old media tycoon's incarceration.