World

Standing on a boat bobbing gently in the Red Sea, Egyptian diving instructor Mohamed Abdelaziz looks on as tourists snorkel amid the brilliantly coloured corals, a natural wonder now under threat from climate change.

"If they disappear, we'll disappear with them," he says of the vibrant corals on the reef, a species-rich ecosystem just below the turquoise waters that is beloved by diving enthusiasts worldwide.

Two Picasso paintings, one of which has spent more than 60 years in a private collection and has never been auctioned, will be among the highlights of the November sale at Christie's in New York.

"Crouching Woman in Turkish Costume (Jacqueline)," which Christie's estimates to be worth $20-30 million, has been in the private collection of a single family since 1957, just two years after it was painted, the auction house said.

Desmond Tutu, South Africa's anti-apartheid icon, Nobel peace prize laureate and a man dubbed the "moral compass of the nation" marks his 90th birthday Thursday, set to make a rare public appearance.

The jovial Tutu, who does not hesitate to speak out against injustice even now, is due to attend a special thanksgiving service at St George's Cathedral in Cape Town, where he was appointed South Africa's first black Anglican archbishop.

Police in Rio de Janeiro found a vast collection of Nazi uniforms and memorabilia in the home of an alleged child abuser, along with several weapons, officials said Wednesday.

The 58-year-old suspect, identified as Aylson Proenca Doyle Linhares, was arrested Tuesday after a couple from his neighborhood reported him for abusing their 12-year-old son, said police commissioner Luis Armond, who is leading the investigation.

NATO said on Wednesday it had stripped eight members of the Russian mission to the Alliance of their accreditation, calling them "undeclared Russian intelligence officers," meaning spies.

A NATO official giving the information said that "we can also confirm that we have reduced the number of positions which the Russian Federation can accredit to NATO to 10", down from 20 previously.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was one of many international leaders forced to tangle with former President Donald Trump in his four years at the White House. Even he, however, couldn't have been prepared for Trump's Diet Coke addiction.

Trump infamously had a button installed on the White House desk that would command a staffer bring him his favorite soda. But in Stephanie Grisham's new book, I'll Take Your Questions Now, Trump was cracking jokes about bribery while meeting with Zelensky at the UN General Assembly in 2019.

Extinction Rebellion climate activists burst onto the catwalk at Louis Vuitton's Paris Fashion Week show Tuesday to blast the industry's impact on the environment, with a banner condemning the effect of excessive consumption on the environment.

Carrying a sign reading "overconsumption = extinction," the woman, representing Amis de la Terre (Friends of the Earth) France, Youth for Climate and Extinction Rebellion, marched down the same path as the models, causing a stir in the audience, a Reuters witness said.

A group of 45 Western countries demanded at the global toxic arms watchdog on Tuesday that Russia provide urgent answers about the poisoning of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny.

Moscow now has 10 days to respond to the questions posed by the EU and countries including the United States, Canada and Australia, under the rules of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).

Pope Francis on Wednesday expressed his personal shame and that of the Church at the sexual abuse of children by French Catholic clergy, after the scale of the problem was laid bare in a devastating report.

"I wish to express to the victims my sadness and pain for the trauma they have suffered," he said during his weekly audience at the Vatican.