VATICAN CITY (AFP) — Pope Leo XIV set the tone for his papacy with a call to stop exploiting nature and marginalizing the poor at his inaugural Mass on Sunday, attended by dignitaries including Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelenskyy and US Vice President JD Vance. Ten days after he became the first US head of the world's 1.4 billion Catholics, some 200,000 people gathered to see his inaugural Mass in St. Peter's Square, according to the Vatican. Before it started, the Chicago-born Robert Francis Prevost

Germany's conservative leader Friedrich Merz suffered a serious blow on Tuesday when he failed to win a parliamentary majority in the first round of voting on him becoming the next chancellor. The unexpected setback, a first in German post-war history, prolongs the half-year of political paralysis that has prevailed in Berlin since the collapse of the coalition government of Olaf Scholz. Merz had hoped in the secret ballot to win the required absolute majority of at least 316 of the 630 votes in

VATICAN CITY (AFP) -- Pope Francis's modest tomb drew massive queues on the first day of public viewing in Rome on Sunday, a day after an estimated 400,000 people turned out for his funeral and burial. Thousands flocked to Santa Maria Maggiore Basilica -- Francis's final resting place -- in another testament to the popularity of the Argentinian, who died aged 88 on Monday. An energetic reformer who championed the poorest and most vulnerable, Francis is credited with reinvigorating the Catholic C

WASHINGTON (AFP) -- US President Donald Trump on Saturday urged free transit for American commercial and military ships through the Panama and Suez canals, tasking his secretary of state with making progress "immediately." Trump has for months been calling for the United States to take control of the Panama Canal but his social media post also shifted focus onto the vital Suez route. "American Ships, both Military and Commercial, should be allowed to travel, free of charge, through the Panama an

ROME (AFP) — US President Donald Trump cast doubt on whether Russian leader Vladimir Putin wants a peace deal, shortly after meeting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the hush of St. Peter's Basilica before Pope Francis' funeral on Saturday. Zelenskyy said they had discussed a possible unconditional ceasefire with Russia and was "hoping for results" from a "very symbolic meeting that has the potential to become historic." This was the two leaders' first meeting since a noisy White House

WASHINGTON (AFP) -- US President Donald Trump on Wednesday played up prospects of a "fair deal" on trade with China, but his top officials offered few details of how Washington might de-escalate its damaging tariff war with Beijing. Trump told reporters his country would have a "fair deal with China," adding that "everything's active" when asked if Washington was talking to Beijing. But how soon the tariffs can be lowered "depends on them," Trump said, referring to Beijing, even as he maintained

NEW YORK (AFP) -- Elon Musk will significantly scale back his Trump administration work in May to focus on Tesla, the billionaire announced Tuesday as the electric vehicle maker reported a 71 percent drop in first-quarter profits. "Probably in the next month, my time allocation to DOGE will drop significantly," Musk said at the outset of an earnings conference call, referring to his work for the "Department of Government Efficiency." The comments came as Tesla reported profits of $409 million fo

KRAMATORSK, Ukraine (AFP) -- Russia and Ukraine on Sunday accused each other of violating an Easter truce as US President Donald Trump surprisingly announced that the war rivals could make a "deal" this week. The 30-hour truce from Saturday, announced by Russia's President Vladimir Putin, had been meant to mark the religious holiday. But Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia had carried out hundreds of frontline attacks. "The Ukrainian army is acting and will continue to act in an

SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) -- As the Trump administration attempts to choke off exports of strategically important computer chips to China, experts say the effort might well backfire, fueling innovation at Chinese firms that could help them seize the world semiconductor market. "What's actually happening is that the US government right now is handing China a big win as it tries to get their own chip business going," said Jack Gold, principal analyst at J.Gold Associates. "Once they're competitive," he

HONG KONG (AP) — Hong Kong's post office will stop shipping small parcels to the United States after Washington announced plans to charge tariffs on small-value parcels from the southern Chinese city, the government said Wednesday. The US government earlier announced that it would end a customs exception allowing small-value parcels from Hong Kong to enter the US without tax, slapping a 120 percent tariff on them starting from May 2. The “de minimis” exemption currently allows shipments that are

GENEVA (AFP) -- Years of negotiations culminated in the wee small hours of Wednesday with countries agreeing the text of a landmark accord on how to tackle future pandemics, aimed at avoiding a repeat of the mistakes made during the COVID-19 crisis. After more than three years of talks and a final marathon session, weary delegates at the World Health Organization's headquarters could finally pop the Champagne corks at around 2 a.m. Wednesday. "The nations of the world made history in Geneva toda

WASHINGTON (AFP) -- Donald Trump believes it is up to China, not the United States, to come to the negotiating table on trade, the White House said Tuesday, after the US president accused Beijing of reneging on a major Boeing deal. "The ball is in China's court. China needs to make a deal with us. We don't have to make a deal with them," said a statement from Trump read out by Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt at a briefing. "There's no difference between China and any other country except they a

Hamas said Monday that Israel has offered a 45-day ceasefire if it releases half of the remaining hostages held in Gaza, which the United Nations said is now in the grip of its worst humanitarian crisis since the start of the war. A Hamas official told Agence France-Presse that Israel had also demanded that the Palestinian militants disarm to secure an end to the Gaza war but that this crossed a "red line." Egyptian mediators passed on an Israeli proposal that "includes the release of half the h

WASHINGTON (AFP) -- US President Donald Trump warned Sunday that no country would be "getting off the hook" on tariffs, as his administration suggested exemptions seen as favoring China would be short-lived. The world's two largest economies have been locked in a fast-moving, high-stakes game of brinkmanship since Trump launched a global tariff assault that particularly targeted Chinese imports. Tit-for-tat exchanges have seen US levies imposed on China rise to 145 percent, and Beijing setting a

The Trump administration has exempted a raft of consumer electronics from its punishing import tariffs -- offering relief to US tech firms and partially dialling down a trade war with China. A notice late Friday by the US Customs and Border Protection office said smartphones, laptops, memory chips and other products would be excluded from the global levies President Donald Trump rolled out a week ago. The move came as retaliatory Chinese import tariffs of 125 percent on US goods took effect Satu