World

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.

Almost 200 environmental activists were murdered last year, with the toll especially heavy in South America, according to rights group Global Witness.

Here are the stories of three campaigners who have faced violence and repression trying to stop wildcat gold mining in Ecuador, illegal shrimp farming in Indonesia and a controversial oil project in Uganda.

Deadly floods and landslides triggered by Typhoon Yagi have affected nearly six million children across Southeast Asia, the UN said Wednesday, as the death toll from the disaster rose.

Typhoon Yagi brought powerful winds and torrential rainfall to Vietnam, Thailand, Laos and Myanmar when it swept across the region almost two weeks ago.

A 32-year-old Australian "computer geek" has been arrested on suspicion of building an encrypted messaging app used by hundreds of criminals worldwide to arrange drug deals and order killings, police said Wednesday.

Australian Federal Police said the Ghost app was marketed to underworld figures as "unhackable" and was used by hundreds of suspected criminals from Europe, the Middle East and Asia.

A Chinese aircraft carrier sailed between two Japanese islands near Taiwan for the first time, Japan's military said on Wednesday, in the latest move by Beijing to anger the close US ally.

Japan's government said it was the first time that a Chinese aircraft carrier, which was accompanied by two destroyers, entered its contiguous zone, an area within 24 nautical miles of the Japanese coast.

Relatives of civilians killed in a botched ambush by the Indian army said Wednesday they were "disgusted" the Supreme Court had quashed criminal proceedings against the soldiers.

"I am greatly hurt that the court has not been able to deliver justice," Chemwang Konyak, whose 32-year-old son was among those killed, told AFP.

The descendant of a Native American teenager who survived being exhibited at a "human zoo" in 19th-century Paris is urging France to repatriate the remains of six others who died there.

Corinne Toka Devilliers says the bones of these six human beings have been lingering in storage at the French capital's Musee de l'Homme (Museum of Mankind) for more than a century.

The death toll has risen to 21 in the extreme weather and flooding let loose by Storm Boris in central Europe, authorities said Tuesday after two more victims were reported in Poland and one in Austria.

High winds and unusually heavy rainfall have hit swathes of Austria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia since last week.

Israel announced the expansion of its war aims on Tuesday, widening its nearly year-long fight against Hamas in Gaza to focus on Hezbollah along its northern border with Lebanon.

The announcement came with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken due back in the region this week to try to revive stalled ceasefire talks for the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.

Meta late Monday said it is banning Russian state media outlets from its apps around the world due to "foreign interference activity."

The ban comes after the United States accused RT and employees of the state-run outlet of funneling $10 million through shell entities to covertly fund influence campaigns on social media channels including TikTok, Instagram, X, and YouTube, according to an unsealed indictment.

The number of people in Japan aged 100 or older has hit a record high of more than 95,000 -- almost 90 percent of them women -- government data showed Tuesday.

The figures further highlight the slow-burning demographic crisis gripping the world's fourth-biggest economy as its population ages and shrinks.

A packed Kampala audience holds its breath as four self-styled "singing fools" in choir uniforms bound onto the stage for their latest daring satire of Ugandan politics.

The Bizonto comedy troupe recount the misadventures in a fictional village, ruled by an ageing leader and suffering from a dire lack of basic services and sky-high taxes.

Tiny but oil-rich Equatorial Guinea long escaped the youth exodus plaguing other African nations, but a decade of economic decline and rising unemployment has left many eager to leave.

The discovery of off-shore oil in the mid-1990s turned the country into Africa's third richest in terms of per capita income.