Paris, France | AFP | Rafael Nadal will be crowned as the year-end world number one if he wins his first match at this week’s Paris Masters, after Roger Federer withdrew from the tournament. The two old rivals have both had stunning seasons, returning to form and fitness with two Grand …

Nairobi, Kenya | AFP | Live bullets, raids on houses and clouds of tear gas: for human rights defenders, the crackdown on Kenya’s opposition protest movement is yet another example of police impunity. Frequently accused of extrajudicial executions, Kenya’s security forces have defended their actions, saying their men had at …

Mogadishu, Somalia | AFP | The death toll from a deadly attack on a hotel in Mogadishu rose to 27 on Sunday, prompting the Somali government to sack its police and intelligence chiefs. The move came after Al-Qaeda aligned Shabaab gunmen staged coordinated bomb attacks Saturday outside the Nasa Hablod …

Mogadishu, Somalia | AFP | A weekend attack claimed by the Al-Qaeda aligned Shabaab on a hotel in Mogadishu has killed at least 27 people, just two weeks after the deadliest attack in Somalia’s history killed 358 people in the capital. It is just the latest in a string of …

Seoul, South Korea | AFP | North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un took his stylish wife and powerful sister to a make-up plant for a “field guidance trip” amid the country’s nuclear standoff with the US. During a visit to the Pyongyang Cosmetics Factory in the capital, Kim hailed its “world-level” products …

Barcelona, Spain | AFP | Spain enters uncharted and potentially perilous territory on Monday as Madrid moves to take over the running of Catalonia in response to the rebellious region’s parliament unilaterally declaring independence. Catalan leaders, dramatically sacked late Friday by the central Spanish government, have urged “democratic opposition” to …

Los Angeles, United States | AFP | The Weinstein revelations have once again shone a light on Hollywood’s seedy underbelly — but rampant sexual harassment in the workplace is hardly confined to the glamorous world of show business. From the cleaning industry to the corporate world, a common thread is …

Paris, France | AFP | Hundreds of flower species have evolved the ability to project ethereal halos of blue light invisible to humans in order to lure pollinating bees, researchers revealed Wednesday. In laboratory experiments, bumblebees were drawn to synthetic flowers designed to generate the same kind of ultraviolent rings, they …

United Nations, United States | AFP | UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is traveling to the Central African Republic next week to draw attention to the world’s “forgotten crisis” and its heavy toll on aid workers and UN peacekeepers. “The Central African Republic is very far from the attention of the international …

Mogadishu, Somalia | AFP | Somali President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed vowed Wednesday to step up the war against Al-Shabaab, as he addressed thousands at a rally in Mogadishu for the victims of the city’s worst-ever bombing. Protesters wearing red bands around their heads marched through the scene of the truck bombing, …