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France's Sports Minister Amelie Oudea-Castera on Thursday ruled out any move of Olympic surfing events away from Tahiti after environmental damage occurred during tests last week.

Climate change caused by human activity made torrential rains that have lashed East Africa since October and killed more than 300 people up to twice as intense, a scientific study said Thursday.

Scott McTominay called on Manchester United to show consistency after they lifted the pressure on under-fire boss Erik ten Hag with a 2-1 win against Chelsea.

A huge blast at an explosives depot in Seychelles on Thursday injured 66 people and brought down buildings, prompting the country's "shocked" president to declare a state of emergency.

Japan's space industry opened potentially an udder-ly new chapter on Thursday with a start-up testing a prototype rocket engine that runs on fuel derived purely from a plentiful local source: cow dung.

European and Asian stock markets retreated Thursday on the eve of key US jobs data, as oil prices rebounded slightly from five-month lows.

Unai Emery refused to label Aston Villa as Premier League title contenders after his side climbed to third place with a 1-0 win against champions Manchester City.

Big-hitting New Zealander Colin Munro slammed an unbeaten 99 to help steer Brisbane Heat to a 103-run thrashing of Glenn Maxwell's Melbourne Stars Thursday on the opening day of Australia's Twenty20 Big Bash League.

Newcomers Minerva Fabienne Hase and Nikita Volodin claimed figure skating gold in the pairs short programme at the Grand Prix Final in Beijing on Thursday.

A much-anticipated US approval of wider bitcoin trading has helped the world's biggest cryptocurrency reach 20-month heights, risking however pain for new investors unaccustomed to its volatility.

Pep Guardiola admits "struggling" Manchester City's unexpected stumble in the Premier League title race has left him searching for solutions to the champions' problems.

The Ukrainian government is "very concerned" by the call from sports federations and National Olympic Committees to allow Russian and Belarusian athletes to compete at next year's Paris Olympics, its acting sports minister has told AFP.

Heavy urban combat raged in and around Gaza's biggest cities Thursday as the bloodiest ever war between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas entered its third month since the October 7 attacks.

Insured losses from natural catastrophes will pass the $100-billion threshold for the fourth year running in 2023, reinsurance giant Swiss Re said Thursday.

Fatah, the largest Palestinian party, has seen its popularity plunge during the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, from where the Islamists violently ousted rivals Fatah in 2007.

Agnes Chow was trapped in Hong Kong, had her passport seized and was branded a "foreign agent" after years as one of the city's most prominent democracy activists.

Asian stocks sank Thursday, extending a rollercoaster week across world markets as investors jockey for position ahead of key US jobs data and oil struggled to bounce back after hitting a five-month low.

Bravian Mise hits a series of grand jetes -- leaping like a gazelle across the cramped living room -- and pirouettes during an exhaustive rehearsal at his home in a Kenyan slum.

Asian stocks sank Thursday, extending a rollercoaster week across world markets as investors jockey for position ahead of key US jobs data and oil struggled to bounce back after hitting a five-month low.

All Blacks playmaker Beauden Barrett said Thursday that he plans to "mentally refresh" during his season-long sabbatical in Japan before returning to play for New Zealand next year.

The outcome of the most important climate negotiations in years could rest on the ambiguity surrounding one linchpin term, according to experts: "unabated fossil fuels".

Any eventual agreement on a fossil fuel phase-out at the COP28 climate summit in Dubai must take into account "different national circumstances", South Africa's environment minister Barbara Creecy told AFP.

With short films centred on poverty, migration and love, Erenik Beqiri has helped draw the global spotlight to Albania's film industry by telling stories at the heart of the country's social and economic fault lines.

Israeli troops battled Hamas militants Thursday in the heart of southern Gaza's main city where a suspected mastermind of the October 7 attacks is believed to be hiding, while pressing their offensive across the besieged territory.

Luis Suarez scored twice in his farewell match for Gremio as the Brazilian side defeated Fluminense 3-2 at the Maracana Stadium in Rio de Janeiro on Wednesday.

EU President Ursula von der Leyen told Chinese leader Xi Jinping on Thursday that the bloc and its biggest trading partner must address their differences, as they began the first in-person EU-China summit in over four years.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan travels to Athens on Thursday in a keenly watched visit billed as an attempted "new chapter" between the NATO allies and historic rivals after years of tension.

Chinese exports rose in November for the first time in seven months, officials said Thursday, as the country navigates a troubled recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic.

Germany's strict constitutional debt rule faces an overhaul after a shock court ruling blew a hole in the budget and left the government scrambling to make its sums add up.

European leaders met Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing on Thursday for talks dominated by divisions between the bloc and its largest economic partner over everything from trade to the war in Ukraine.

Indonesian authorities on Thursday said they had ended a search and rescue mission for any hikers missing or killed after a volcano eruption over the weekend that left 23 people dead.

Asian stocks sank Thursday, extending a rollercoaster week across world markets as investors jockey for position ahead of key US jobs data, while oil struggled to bounce back after hitting a five-month low.