World

U.S. President Joe Biden will host the leaders of Australia, Japan and India at his Delaware home this weekend to bid farewell to the so-called "Quad" group that he has pushed as a counterweight to China.

Biden chose his hometown of Wilmington for the summit of the four-nation group -- the last of his presidency after he dropped out of the 2024 election against Donald Trump and handed the Democratic reins to Kamala Harris.

Israel said it pounded Lebanon's Hezbollah, just hours after the group's leader vowed retribution for deadly explosions that targeted its communication devices, killing 37 people and wounding thousands.

The Iran-backed Hezbollah blamed Israel for the explosion of thousands of its operatives' pagers and radios in attacks that spanned two days this week. Israel has yet to comment on the attacks.

An unprecedented heat wave across South Korea has driven up the price of cabbages, data revealed Friday, with the vegetable used in the famed national dish kimchi surging by nearly 70 percent year-on-year.

The price of a single cabbage hit 9,337 won (US$ 7.02) on Thursday -- up 69.1 percent from the same day a year ago, according to data released by the state-run Korea Agro-Fisheries & Food Trade Corporation.

A previously unknown piece of music composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart when he was probably in his early teens has been uncovered at a library in Germany, researchers said Thursday.

The piece dates to the mid- to late-1760s and consists of seven miniature movements for a string trio lasting around 12 minutes, the Leipzig Municipal Libraries said in a statement.

A group of former Donald Trump advisers and operatives have helped set up an increasingly popular website that spreads pro-Russia propaganda and right-wing conspiracy theories.

Trump's former 2016 campaign adviser George Papadopoulos, his wife Simona Mangiante and a number of other associates of the former president make up the editorial board for the website Intelligencer, which enjoyed its best month for traffic in August and has been promoted by conspiracist Alex Jones, former Trump White House staffer Garrett Ziegler and former Trump aide Roger Stone, reported The Guardian.

The Vatican said Thursday it recognized the shrine of Medjugorje in Bosnia-Herzegovina, without commenting on the Virgin's "alleged messages" to the faithful, who have gathered there in the millions for more than 40 years.

In a 17-page document approved by Pope Francis, the powerful Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith said it wanted to "conclude a long and complex history that has surrounded the spiritual phenomena of Medjugorje", which have fueled "a series of divergent opinions" within the Catholic community.

Same-sex Taiwanese-Chinese couples are now legally able to register their marriages in Taiwan, Taipei said Thursday, recognizing cross-strait unions for the first time.

Taiwan has long been at the forefront of Asia's burgeoning LGBTQ rights movement, becoming in 2019 the first place in the region to legalize marriage equality.

Cooking, cleaning, caring for the kids during the day, Chen Hualiang takes on household tasks many Chinese fathers tend to leave to their wives, bucking a deep-rooted patriarchal tradition and even inspiring a hit TV show.

The former project manager gave up the rat race to join a growing number of "full-time dads", as they are known in China.

A Vietnamese property tycoon sentenced to death for fraud totalling $27 billion went on trial Thursday in a related case accused of money laundering.

Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, was found guilty in April of swindling cash from the Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade in one of the biggest corruption cases in history.

A Hong Kong man was sentenced to 14 months in jail on Thursday for wearing a T-shirt with protest slogans found to be "seditious" under the city's new national security law.

Chu Kai-pong, 27, had pleaded guilty on Monday to one count of "doing acts with seditious intention", and is the city's first conviction under the new, tougher law, known colloquially as "Article 23".

Multiple women have accused Egyptian billionaire Mohamed Al-Fayed, the former owner of upmarket London department store Harrods where they worked, of rape and sexual assault, the BBC said on Thursday.

The allegations, made in a BBC documentary and podcast, are the latest to be leveled at powerful figures following the start of the #MeToo movement in 2017.

When the Taliban banned women from attending university in Afghanistan, Zahra Hussaini thought her dream of becoming a doctor was over. Now, she is continuing her medical degree in Britain.

"Coming to Scotland, it changed everything. It has given me hope for a better future," the 20-year-old told AFP in Glasgow, where she arrived last month to resume her studies.