World

The strongest typhoon to hit Taiwan in eight years killed three people and flooded parts of the island’s second-biggest city on Thursday, while rescuers searched for nine sailors missing after their cargo ship sank in the storm.

Typhoon Gaemi transformed streets in southern Kaohsiung city into rivers, with some households flooded by rainwater. Schools and offices were closed in several cities for a second day, with the stock market suspended and thousands of people evacuated.

Far north of iconic wine regions like Bordeaux and Tuscany, Sweden is seeing a burgeoning industry of vineyards and a first generation of winemakers trying to carve out a niche.

"There are millions of techniques, and I don't have a grandfather or grandmother to ask. So we need to figure it out ourselves," Lena Magnergard, 64, told AFP as she walked through the short rows of grapevines at the Selaon vineyard an hour west of Stockholm.

Ongoing air drills with South Korea will "sharpen" their joint combat capabilities, the US military said Thursday, as the nuclear-armed North ramps up threats and a balloon blitz against Seoul.

Seoul and Washington's air forces started around three weeks of joint drills Tuesday in Suwon, south of Seoul, involving US F/A-18 and F-35B combat aircraft.

Manila street vendor Zenaida Cuerda said Thursday she is "back to zero" after floodwaters washed away the food she sells for a living and swept through her house.

She is one of thousands in the Philippine capital coming to terms with their losses from the relentless rain, after Typhoon Gaemi intensified the seasonal monsoon.

Fox News contributor Jessica Tarlov rebuffed Republican attacks on Vice President Kamala Harris after she declined to attend Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's speech to Congress.

Following the prime minister's address on Wednesday, Fox News host Howard Kurtz criticized Harris for her absence.

At least one member of the U.S. House of Representatives silently protested Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as he addressed a joint session of Congress.

During his speech on Wednesday, the Israeli leader compared pro-Palestinian protesters to Nazis and called them Iran's "useful idiots."

Thousands of demonstrators marched towards the US Capitol on Wednesday to protest Benjamin Netanyahu and call for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war, as the Israeli premier prepared to address the U.S. Congress.

Crowds carrying Palestinian flags and signs ranging from left-wing slogans to Bible verses gathered near the Capitol calling for a ceasefire and the arrest of Netanyahu, as prosecutors seek a warrant for him at the International Criminal Court.

Small white squares dot the ocean off Havana, an unlikely fleet of fishermen bobbing on makeshift polystyrene rafts they use to make up for a lack of fuel or money to buy a proper boat.

"In the past, we fished a lot with the inner tubes of truck tires, but the danger was that they would burst. With these rafts, there is no danger. They do not capsize," said Coli Rivera, 54, returning from several hours of fishing off the village of Santa Fe, near Havana.

Hundreds of dancers set to perform Friday at the Paris Olympics opening ceremony have called off a planned strike over pay disparities after reaching a deal with the event’s organizers, the SFA-CGT union said. Other French public sector workers have also threatened strikes ahead of the Summer Games to demand pay increases.

Hundreds of dancers who were threatening to strike during the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics on Friday have called off their protest after receiving a new pay offer, their union said.

Staples of Austrian cooking such as schnitzel, roast pork lung and boiled beef have proved particularly vital for Gasthaus Stich, a restaurant in the village of Pfoesing.

They have helped the struggling business to survive by earning it a subsidy from right-wing state authorities in a controversial programme that benefits only traditional Austrian cuisine.

Kamala Harris's outspoken stance on the Gaza war hints at a possible shift from Joe Biden's Israel policy as she eyes the Democratic presidential nomination -- as Benjamin Netanyahu is likely to find out this week.

The US vice president will be conspicuously absent from the Israeli leader's address to the US Congress on Wednesday, in what analysts said was a clear signal about her concerns over civilian casualties in Gaza.

Deportation flights from Panama for undocumented US-bound migrants who have crossed the lawless Darien jungle from South America are expected to start imminently, a U.S. official said Tuesday.

Washington this month pledged $6 million in funding for migrant repatriations from the Central American nation in the hope of reducing irregular crossings at its own southern border.