World

Poland's conservative President Andrzej Duda on Friday vetoed a proposal by the pro-EU ruling coalition to restore prescription-free emergency contraception, which was reversed by the previous nationalist government.

Catholic-majority Poland saw a rollback of women's reproductive rights during the right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) party's eight-year rule, with access tightened to emergency contraception, made prescription-only in 2017.

The man who helped broker the deal for former President Donald Trump to set up a golf resort in Scotland now has deep regrets.

The BBC reports that Neil Hobday, the project director for Trump's golf resort in Aberdeenshire, has apologized for pushing through a deal that he says has not delivered on its promises to local residents.

When same-sex marriages became legal in England and Wales 10 years ago on Friday, Britons Neil Allard and Andrew Wale could not have tied the knot any quicker.

The couple, now in their 50s, got hitched at midnight on March 29, 2014, the very moment the historic Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013 came into force.

Oscar best picture winner "Oppenheimer" was finally released on Friday in Japan, where its subject -- the man who masterminded the creation of the atomic bomb -- is a highly sensitive and emotional topic.

The US blockbuster hit screens in the United States and many other countries in July at the same time as "Barbie", inspiring a viral phenomenon dubbed "Barbenheimer" by moviegoers.

Kicked out of other prayer services, members of Bangladesh's transgender hijra community have been welcomed at a new mosque in the Muslim-majority nation with the promise of worship without discrimination.

The humble structure -- a single-room shed with walls and a roof clad in tin -- is a new community hub for the minority, who have enjoyed greater legal and political recognition in recent years but still suffer from entrenched prejudice.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked Israel's top court Thursday for a new delay on compulsory military service for ultra-Orthodox Jews, an issue that has put his ruling coalition at risk.

Conscription of ultra-Orthodox men has long been a divisive issue in Israeli politics, precipitating a protracted crisis that saw five parliamentary elections in under four years.

A time-traveling TV comedy with a bawdy middle-aged hero has become a big hit in Japan, juxtaposing the country's brash 1980s boom years with its more politically correct present day.

In the series, titled "Extremely Inappropriate", the past isn't rose-tinted: there's smoking on the bus, boobs on television and corporal punishment galore.

The King of New Zealand's Indigenous Maori people made an impassioned call Thursday for whales to be granted the same legal rights as people in a bid to protect the hallowed yet vulnerable species.

Kiingi Tuheitia Potatau te Wherowhero VII said that majestic marine mammals should be given inherent human rights, such as having a healthy environment, to allow the restoration of their populations.

China has sent more than a million bottles of water from melting Tibetan glaciers to the Maldives, officials said Thursday, a gift from the world's highest mountains to a low-lying archipelago threatened by rising seas.

The Indian Ocean nation of 1,192 tiny coral islands is on the frontlines of the climate crisis, with salt levels seeping into the land and corrupting potable water, leaving it dependent on desalination plants.

A fourth chocolate -- "blond" -- has been slowly making inroads into French confectionary, but has failed to win official recognition and faces competition from a pink Swiss variety.

Blond choccy was born from an accident.

Spanish prosecutors are seeking two-and-a-half years jail for disgraced ex-football chief Luis Rubiales who is facing trial for kissing Spain midfielder Jenni Hermoso on the lips against her will, court documents showed Wednesday.

Prosecutors also want Rubiales, who has been charged with sexual assault and coercion, to pay at least 50,000 euros ($54,000) in compensation to Hermoso, they wrote in a document sent to Spain's Audiencia Nacional court, a copy of which was seen by AFP.

The head of France's national cybersecurity agency said the Paris Olympics would be a "target" this year including for foreign states interested in "disrupting the opening ceremony or causing problems on public transport".

The warning from Vincent Strubel, director general of the French Cybersecurity Agency (ANSSI), comes amid strained diplomatic relations between France and Russia over the war in Ukraine.