Paris, France | AFP |  Designers of machine translation tools still mostly rely on dictionaries to make a foreign language understandable. But now there is a new way: numbers. Facebook researchers say rendering words into figures and exploiting mathematical similarities between languages is a promising avenue — even if a universal …

Vatican City, Holy See | AFP | Pope Francis creates five new saints on Sunday, including Britain’s Cardinal John Henry Newman — one of the Catholic Church’s most renowned converts — and a nun dubbed the “Mother Teresa of Brazil”. Heads of state from across the world are expected at the …

Washington, United States | AFP |  Joe Biden faces scrutiny over Ukraine, Elizabeth Warren is surging and Bernie Sanders had a heart attack, but recent developments in the Democratic presidential battle are getting minimal attention, swamped by Washington’s impeachment obsession. Most Democratic candidates are pounding the pavement in early voting states …

San Francisco, United States | AFP |  On October 29, 1969, professor Leonard Kleinrock and a team at the University of California at Los Angeles got a computer to “talk” to a machine in what is now known as Silicon Valley. The event gave birth to a network that later became …

Tunis, Tunisia | AFP |  Almost a month since the launch of Tunisia’s presidential vote and whittled down from more than 20 candidates, conservative law professor Kais Saied and media magnate Nabil Karoui face off Sunday before the country’s electorate of seven million. The two political newcomers swept aside establishment candidates …

Paris, France | AFP | Italy became the second team to qualify for Euro 2020 after a 2-0 win over Greece on Saturday, while three-time champions Spain edged closer to the finals despite conceding a stoppage-time equaliser away to Norway. Chelsea midfielder Jorginho dispatched a second-half penalty as Italy, wearing green …

Washington, United States | AFP | Engulfed in an impeachment inquiry and other political turmoil, US President Donald Trump on Friday trumpeted the success of his hard-line stance with China, claiming to have scored a major win in the grinding trade war between the economic powers. But while Trump took a …

Versailles, France | AFP | The last time the strains of the aria “Oh Richard! Oh my king!” echoed around the Opera Royal at Versailles it was for Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette just before they were dragged off to Paris and their doom by their revolting subjects. The piece from “Richard …

Lake Charles, United States | AFP |  As impeachment pressure mounted on Donald Trump, the president left Washington for the second day in a row Friday to rally hardcore supporters in a bid to turn the scandal into fuel for his 2020 reelection. Framing himself as the victim of a plot …

KAHUZI-BIEGA NATIONAL PARK, DR Congo | AFP | Aged almost 17 years, Bonane is an eastern lowland gorilla, a survivor in a critically endangered species reduced to about 250 members in DR Congo’s Kahuzi-Biega National Park. For an hour each day, the gorilla and his dozen-strong family host a handful of …