World

Rome's iconic Trevi Fountain is to undergo a two-month clean-up when some visitors will get a rare, close-up view of the Baroque masterpiece from a suspended walkway, authorities said Monday.

Construction of the walkway began Monday "to allow for a major extraordinary maintenance intervention" on the fountain, Rome city council said.

Three hours into his shift as a street sweeper in Madrid on a summer afternoon when temperatures went above 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit), Jose Antonio Gonzalez fainted from heatstroke. He died the next day in hospital.

With the Spanish capital on heatwave alert, the 60-year-old had set out for work that day in July 2022 with two two-litre bottles of water and a spray bottle to cool off.

Slated for demolition, the graffiti-covered building close to the inter-Korean border was once a "monkey house", a clinic for sex workers forced to serve US soldiers protecting Seoul from North Korea.

Activists, including women who were forced into gruesome treatments for sexually transmitted diseases, say the site should be preserved for its historical significance, but the bulldozers will move in this month to clear it for a tourist development.

Kenya's parliament was set to vote on Tuesday on impeaching Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua in a political drama that has exposed a rift in the governing party.

Lawmakers have accused the 59-year-old deputy to President William Ruto of corruption, undermining the government and practising ethnically divisive politics, among a host of other charges.

Japanese prosecutors have decided not to appeal against last month's acquittal of the world's longest-serving death row prisoner, Iwao Hakamada, local media reported Tuesday.

After a long fight for justice led by his sister, a court declared on September 27 that Hakamada, 88, was innocent of the quadruple murder for which he spent 46 years waiting to be executed.

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris condemned Hamas's attack on Israel a year ago Monday while pushing for peace in the Middle East -- treading a tightrope on a conflict that could impact next month's US presidential election.

From candle-lighting to tree-planting, the US president and the Democratic presidential candidate will take part in ceremonies to mark the anniversary of the October 7 attacks on key American ally Israel.

Ditching a lucrative career in finance, Vu Dinh Tu opened a coffee shop without telling his parents and joined a wave of young Vietnamese entrepreneurs using espressos to challenge family expectations around work.

Traditionally taken black, sometimes with condensed milk, or even egg, coffee has long been an integral part of Vietnamese culture.

The southern French city of Marseille was shaken this week by two apparently drug-related killings, including the murder of a 15-year-old boy who was "stabbed 50 times" and burned alive, prosecutors said on Sunday.

Marseille, France's second-largest city but also one of its poorest, is plagued by drug-related violence.

Japan's government admitted Monday manipulating an official photo of the new cabinet to make its members look less unkempt, after online mockery of their sagging trousers.

Images taken by local media showed what appeared to be an untidy patch of white shirt under the morning suits of Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba and Defence Minister Gen Nakatani.

Israel began its commemorations Monday of the one-year anniversary of Hamas's deadly October 7 attack, with an outpouring of emotion at vigils at massacre sites and rallies calling for the return of hostages.

Ceremonies and events are planned across Israel and in cities around the world to mark the anniversary of the unprecedented attack by Palestinian militants from the Gaza Strip, which claimed more than 1,200 lives.

The mayor of a city in southern Mexico has been murdered less than a week after taking office, authorities said Sunday, the latest in a series of attacks on politicians in the violence-plagued Latin American country.

The killing of Chilpancingo mayor Alejandro Arcos "fills us with indignation," Guerrero state governor Evelyn Salgado wrote on social media, without providing further details of the circumstances.

Vienna (AFP) – Alone in front of her laptop, Gilda-Nancy Horvath composed and recorded her first angry rap, "Trushula" -- the anthem of an artist railing against the racism suffered by her Roma people in her native Austria and beyond.

Eight years later, her quest has gained fresh relevance with the resurgence of the European far-right -- several of whose figureheads she assails in that early track, pounding out her rhyming verses to the rhythm of keyboards and drums.

Beirut (Lebanon) (AFP) – A fireball lit up the sky and smoke billowed over Beirut on Sunday as Israel unleashed intense strikes targeting Hezbollah, almost a year since the Hamas attack that sparked war in Gaza.

In Gaza, Israel's military said it had encircled the northern area of Jabaliya after indications Hamas was rebuilding despite nearly a year of devastating air strikes and fighting.