The National Times - News around the clock from Sydney, Australia and around the world

Thousands of sanitation workers were toiling on Friday to clean up 20,000 tonnes of waste left behind by hundreds of millions of Hindu devotees after India's Kumbh Mela mega-festival.

Ireland host France on Saturday in a Six Nations match that Irish interim head coach Simon Easterby says has "become a crux game" in where the championship might head.

Pope Francis marked three weeks battling double pneumonia in hospital on Friday, reported by the Vatican to be "stable" but sounding weak and breathless in his first audio message.

On a lush green hilltop on Israel's northern border with Lebanon, Carmela Keren Yakuti proudly shows off her home in Dovev, which she fled more than 16 months ago over fears of a Hezbollah attack.

Syria's new authorities launched a sweeping security operation Friday after clashes with fighters loyal to former president Bashar al-Assad, the biggest challenge to their rule so far, left at least 71 people dead.

Aquila, a rescued golden eagle, was grounded after captors in Tunisia clipped his wings, but after months of rehabilitation he was set free -- a rare success story in a country where wildlife is threatened by climate change and human activity.

A South Korean court cancelled the arrest warrant of impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol on Friday, but he remains behind bars with the prosecution likely to appeal.

Donald Trump on Friday hosts top cryptocurrency players at the White House, a political boost for an industry that has struggled to gain legitimacy -- and where the Republican president faces conflict of interest concerns.

New Zealand are "hopeful" pace bowler Matt Henry will recover from a shoulder injury in time for their Champions Trophy final against India on Sunday, coach Gary Stead said.

Luka Doncic and LeBron James combined for 63 points as the Los Angeles Lakers produced a thrilling late fightback to seal a 113-109 overtime victory over the New York Knicks on Thursday.

Feminist activists in Spain say inaction and men's silence are hindering the eradication of abuse, as the country celebrates 20 years of a pioneering law against gender-based violence.

Spain, a European renewable energy leader, is coming under increasing pressure from the right and business groups to reverse its plans to phase out its nuclear power plants by 2035.

Erika Renner was not surprised when Hungarian police at first put down the horrific death of a Japanese woman whose charred body was found in a Budapest apartment to an accidental fire.

Japan partially lifted wildfire evacuation orders on Friday after rain helped stop the country's worst blaze in more than half a century from spreading.

A South Korean court cancelled the arrest warrant of impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol on Friday, but he remains behind bars with the prosecution likely to appeal.

Seawoman Second Class Stephane Villalon's voice reverberated on the bridge of her Philippine ship as she issued a radio challenge to a much larger Chinese Coast Guard vessel in a disputed area of the South China Sea.

Four years after the death of Argentine football legend Diego Maradona, seven healthcare professionals will go on trial next week accused of negligence during his final days.

Young Bangladeshi mother Mafia Akhter's decision to give birth at home and without a doctor left her grieving over her firstborn's lifeless body and vowing never to repeat the ordeal.

Indonesia approved local certificates for more than a dozen Apple products on Friday, the industry ministry said, moving the tech giant a step closer to having a ban lifted on iPhone sales in Southeast Asia's biggest economy.

Floods and landslides on Indonesia's main island of Java killed one and left seven more missing after heavy rains inundated more than a dozen towns, an official said Friday.

China's foreign minister on Friday vowed Beijing would "firmly counter" US pressure, after Donald Trump heaped tariffs on Chinese goods and torched off a trade war between the world's two largest economies.

India play New Zealand in the Champions Trophy final in Dubai on Sunday in what could be a last hurrah for veteran stars Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma.

Gaudy colours, messy brushwork, even a set of missing toes. The debate about the authenticity of a Rubens's masterpiece "Samson and Delilah" will be reignited next week with the release of a book alleging the painting hanging in London's National Gallery is really a copy.

A devastated Nick Kyrgios said he doesn't know what else he can do to get his tennis career back on track after pain in his surgically reconstructed right wrist forced him out of Indian Wells.

China's exports grew slower than expected in the first two months of the year, official data showed Friday, as a deepening trade war with the United States piles on economic malaise.

Indian football legend Sunil Chhetri will return to the national team aged 40 in an unexpected reversal of his decision to hang up his boots last year.

Asian stocks tumbled at the open Friday following a tough day on Wall Street as uncertainty over US President Donald Trump's trade policies roiled markets and traders awaited key US jobs data.

China's retaliatory tariffs against US farm produce from corn to chicken are designed to hurt Donald Trump's voter base, but remain restrained enough to allow room for the adversaries to hash out a trade deal, analysts say.

China's retaliatory tariffs against US farm produce from corn to chicken are designed to hurt Donald Trump's voter base, but remain restrained enough to allow room for the adversaries to hash out a trade deal, analysts say.

Lucky loser Botic van de Zandschulp advanced to face five-time Indian Wells champion Novak Djokovic on Thursday as first-round foe Nick Kyrgios was forced out of his latest comeback event with a right wrist injury.

After winning rave reviews for her turn in the film "The Last Showgirl", Pamela Anderson is now dreaming of doing theatre as the 1990s glamour model seeks to reinvent herself again.

The Moutier-Grandval Bible, an illustrated ninth-century masterpiece considered one of the finest manuscripts in the world, is back in Switzerland, where it miraculously survived the ages in impeccable condition.