International News

23-year old Ashutosh Agnihotri has been playing god this week. Ahead of the Dussehra festival, which celebrates the defeat of mythological demon Ravana, at the hands of Lord Rama, artists dressed in ornate crowns and costumes perform the Ramleela, a dramatic re-enactment of Lord Rama’s life as told in the religious epic Ramayana. Performing as one of Hindu-majority India’s most beloved gods means living up to the values enshrined in his inspiring life story, says Agnihotri, the actor playing Lord Rama. The former technology professional-turned-actor is trying to keep his anger in check during the 10-day run of the Ramleela in a New Delhi park. “Well, I get angry. God does not get angry easily,” he says. “When you have played the character of god, you realize how you should live your life as a human being. God has shown you everything.” Usually performed on a brightly lit open stage, the Ramleela brings alive one of the most enduring tales in Hindu religion, symbolizing the...

As the war between Israel and Hezbollah intensifies, Lebanese civilians are increasingly paying the price – and this dangerous reality often becomes clear in the middle of the night: That’s when the Israeli military typically warns people to evacuate b...

Paraguay a few months ago launched an operation to address some of the many problems plaguing its prison system, including internal gang control, but one problem in particular has proven difficult to deal with: overcrowding. The South American nation has 18 prisons with a capacity for almost 10,000 inmates, but the current population exceeds 17,600, according to the latest figures provided by authorities which go until the end of 2023. A country of more than 6 million inhabitants, Paraguay is considered a regional drug trafficking hub. An Associated Press photographer recently had access to five different prisons — four male facilities and one for women — to see how their inmates live. With the exception of the female detention center, overcrowding was common. One of the penitentiaries the AP visited was Tacumbú, the largest prison in Paraguay, which authorities raided nine months ago in an effort to regain control from the Rotela clan — a gang that has extended its presence onto...

The number of migrants crossing the Darien Gap, a rugged jungle passage between Colombia and Panama, increased significantly in September

Oct. 4-10, 2024 An attack by an armed gang in Pont-Sondé killed and displaced people in Haiti. Brazilians voted in municipal elections. Hurricane Milton crashed through both Cuba and Mexico's Yucatán peninsula. This gallery highlights some of the most compelling images made or published in the past week by The Associated Press from Latin America and the Caribbean. The selection was curated by AP photo editor Jon Orbach, based in Mexico City. ___ Follow AP visual journalism: AP Images blog: http://apimagesblog.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/apnews X: http://twitter.com/AP_Images

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told Southeast Asian leaders Friday that the U.S. is concerned about China’s “increasingly dangerous and unlawful” activities in the disputed South China Sea during an annual summit meeting, and pledged the U.S. w...

Police say gunmen killed 20 miners and wounded another seven in Pakistan’s southwest

Police say gunmen killed 20 miners and wounded seven in an attack in Pakistan’s southwest

South Korea’s central bank cut its policy rate for the first time in more than four years as pressure to revive a sluggish economy outweighed concerns about the country’s level of household debt

Some 400 pro-establishment electors are set to approve the sole candidate for Macao’s chief executive job on Sunday, making him the Chinese casino hub’s first leader born in mainland China

A British YouTuber and rapper known as Yung Filly has been charged with raping and choking a woman in a hotel room following an Australian music performance

New Zealand’s Defense Minister Judith Collins has decried what she called misogynistic online comments about the woman commander of a navy ship which ran aground, caught fire and sank off the coast of Samoa on Sunday

A new mayor has been sworn in a city in southern Mexico where his predecessor was killed and beheaded less than a week after taking office

Mexico has sent 660 soldiers and militarized National Guard officers to the western state of Michoacan to protect lime growers who complained they were suffering extortion demands by cartels

Police in Puerto Rico say they have rescued 170 animals from a home in a mountain town and arrested their owner

Israeli forces have asked U.N. peacekeepers to withdraw.

A human rights lawyer and activist missing for nearly a week in southern Mexico regularly received threats related to her work

Prosecutors say South African President Cyril Ramaphosa won’t face criminal charges over a hidden cash scandal that was revealed more than two years ago and triggered an investigation by a special police unit

Lebanon's Health Ministry says death toll from Israeli airstrikes on central Beirut climbs to 18, with 92 others wounded

A chilling, thriller-like account of how a nuclear war might unfold and books by two award-winning novelists are among finalists for Britain’s leading nonfiction book prize

Israeli strikes in central Beirut kill 11 people and wound 48, Lebanon's health ministry says

The study’s findings revealed declines in “every indicator that tracks the state of nature on a global scale."

The poet and novelist was praised by the Nobel committee for her “intense poetic prose.”

A study suggests the coming years are "crucial for the future of life on Earth."

Mozambicans are waiting for early election results a day after a vote for a new president passed off peacefully despite opposition candidates claiming fraud and manipulation by the longtime ruling party

South Koreans have reacted with joy and astonishment after learning that homegrown writer Han Kang won the Nobel Prize in literature, an unexpected moment that stoked national pride about the country’s growing cultural influence

Prince William and the Princess of Wales have carried out their first joint public engagement since the end of Kate’s chemotherapy by meeting the bereaved parents of victims of a stabbing rampage in the seaside town of Southport

The head of Africa’s top public health agency says that an outbreak of the Ebola-like Marburg fever in Rwanda is under control and that travel bans to the East African country are unnecessary

Protests over the high cost of living in the French Caribbean island of Martinique have turned violent, with demonstrators setting fire to a police station, cars and roadblocks as they clashed with officers

Turkey’s president has traveled to Albania’s capital to inaugurate a Turkish-funded mosque as part of a trip to boost ties and discuss regional issues

ABC News correspondent Patrick Reevell has the latest from the war in the Middle East.

Passengers including European Parliament officials were evacuated from a train departing from the eastern French city of Strasbourg after “light smoke” emerged from the train

A Cyprus court has ordered eight Syrians to remain in police detention for six days on suspicion they helped fund an alleged “terrorist organization” in their native country

A U.N. commission has accused Israel of destroying Gaza’s health care system through “relentless and deliberate attacks” in its yearlong war with Hamas

Catch up on the developing stories from around the globe making headlines.

Gunmen have invaded another town north of Haiti’s capital, just a week after a massacre killed at least 115 people in the country’s central region

Poland's foreign minister says the European Union nation is tightening its visa regulations as probes into alleged cash-for-visa scandal have confirmed irregularities under the previous governmnet going into millions of dollars

Officials in Cairo denied the claims, saying they sought "to halt the war."

Immigration officers in Indonesia’s tourist island of Bali have arrested a Chinese suspect sought by Beijing for helping run over $14 billion investment scam to clients in China

The World Trade Organization has raised its outlook for global goods trade this year slightly, but cautions that increasing geopolitical tensions and uncertainty over economic policy pose “substantial” risks to its forecast

Authorities say that Israeli strikes in the Gaza Strip and Beirut have left dozens of people dead

Britain’s new Labour government has unveiled a slew of new rights for workers, including more generous rules for sick pay and parental leave and major restrictions on certain precarious employment practices such as fire and rehire

Two people died in a fire at one of the Russian capital’s most notable buildings, a gargantuan Brutalist apartment block that viewers have likened to a toppled skyscraper

It's hard to imagine many Indian households that aren't somehow touched by the $100 billion conglomerate named for the family of Ratan Tata, who died this week at the age of 86. Tata has been a mythical name in Indian consumers' imaginations for generations. Every day, all across India, people consume the Tata Group's salt and lentils, commute to work on Tata buses passing Tata cars and trucks after applying Tata beauty products in homes built from Tata steel. In Kashmir, Firdosa Jan makes tea for her family from a packet labeled Tata Tea Gold. Hundreds of miles away in the northeastern Indian state of Nagaland, 25-year-old Teisovinuo Yhome is cooking a dish on an open fire, using Tata salt for seasoning. Even though it was a business conglomerate, in the popular imagination, Tata was a man to envy and emulate. At the turn of the 20th century, Ratan Tata’s grandfather, Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata, built the first luxury hotel in India, and many saw it as better than any the British...

NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte says the alliance will hold its annual nuclear exercise next week

UN official says Israeli fire has wounded two peacekeepers in Lebanon

Nobel Prize in literature awarded to South Korean author Han Kang “for her intense poetic prose"

Landing in the midst of heated arguments in France about immigration comes an award-winning film about the issue with an eye-popping twist: Its lead actor Abou Sangare is himself an immigrant lacking permanent legal status

A Hong Kong court has rejected jailed publisher Jimmy Lai’s request to have a jury trial for his libel case against a pro-Beijing newspaper

Palestinian officials raise death toll from Israeli strike on Gaza shelter to 21