The contemporary art market is booming with Chinese artists helping to push prices up by nearly a fifth in the past year, the world's biggest art index said Monday. Rocketing prices for living artists have for the first time become the motor of the market, Artprice told AFP. Nowhere is...

Two people have been killed in a powerful typhoon that battered Japan over the weekend, officials said Monday, as the storm's aftermath brought travel chaos to Tokyo's morning commute. By Monday morning, Typhoon Trami had cleared Japan, but its powerful winds and heavy rainfall caused...

When Hollywood stars and some of the world's top models get together it's usually their fans who get the goosebumps. But it was actresses Elle Fanning, Andie MacDowell, Eva Longoria and supermodels Winnie Harlow and Ming Xi who had the shivers from a chill breeze as they prepared to...

Chelsea ended title rivals Liverpool's perfect start to the Premier League season in a thrilling 1-1 draw at Stamford Bridge. Champions Manchester City are top on goal difference from Liverpool, while Manchester United's 3-1 loss away to West Ham raised fresh questions over the future of...

US and Canadian negotiators were holding eleventh-hour talks on Sunday aimed at revamping the North American Free Trade Agreement ahead of a Washington-imposed deadline, with the outcome far from certain. The talks were being held over the phone, unlike in previous rounds where Canadian...

Sebastian Vettel admitted he did not see Lewis Hamilton in his Ferrari mirrors when the pair battled for position during a classic mid-race scrap in Sunday?s Russian Grand Prix. The four-time champion German was accused of performing a double-defensive move by the Mercedes driver as he...

Israel Sunday released a French-Palestinian lawyer held without charge for the past 13 months over unspecified allegations, his lawyer said. Salah Hamouri, 33, was freed at Jerusalem police headquarters after being brought from his cell in a prison in southern Israel's Negev desert....

Fifty-eight migrants rescued by the Aquarius charity ship disembarked in Malta Sunday after nearly a week at sea fearing the authorities would impound the vessel, an AFP journalist said. The migrants, mostly Libyans, boarded two buses at Valletta after being transferred off-shore from...

Voting began Sunday across Iraq's Kurdistan for a new parliament in the autonomous region which is mired in an economic crisis a year after an independence referendum that infuriated Baghdad. More than 3.1 million voters are eligible to cast ballots across three provinces in the northern...

Indonesians desperate to trace loved ones missing in the earthquake and tsunami that struck the island of Sulawesi are turning to social media sites like Facebook to aid their search. With the scale of the disaster still unclear, telecommunications patchy and some areas still out of...

The UN envoy to Libya told AFP that it will be difficult to hold elections as hoped on December 10, following a new wave of fighting in the North African nation. "There is still a lot to do. It may not be possible to respect the date of December 10," Ghassan Salame said in an interview....

In a sparse, wood-floored studio, Saudi women squat, lunge and do headstands. Even a year ago, teaching these yoga postures could have rendered them outlaws in the conservative Islamic kingdom. Widely perceived as a Hindu spiritual practice, yoga was not officially permitted for decades...

British Prime Minister Theresa May gathers her party for its annual conference this weekend, facing opposition on all sides as she heads into the final stretch of Brexit negotiations. The Conservative leader arrived in Birmingham, central England, just days after the EU rejected her...

For Jaume Casamitjana, last year's banned independence referendum in Catalonia marked a watershed in his feelings about Spain, while for Alexandra Lopez-Liz, it pushed her to take a stand against the separatist movement. A year after the contested October 1, 2017 referendum,...

US President Donald Trump said he and North Korea's Kim Jong Un have fallen "in love" ?- their bromance fuelled by "beautiful letters" he received from the leader of the nuclear-armed state. Trump on Saturday elevated his recent praise of Kim to new heights, at a West Virginia rally in...

North Korea needs more trust in the U.S. and their developing relationship before it will get rid of its nuclear weapons, Pyongyang's top diplomat said Saturday as an envoy from another of the international community's biggest worries — Syria — demanded that the U.S., France and Turkey withdraw...

Real Madrid failed to win for a second straight game and missed the chance to go top of La Liga as they drew with city rivals Atletico Madrid. Real, beaten by Sevilla in midweek, could have overtaken Barcelona, who drew against Athletic Bilbao earlier. Welshman Gareth Bale...

Heart attacks caused 12 percent of all deaths in the European Union in 2015, Eurostat revealed Saturday on the World Heart Day. Among the Member States, the highest rate of deaths caused by heart attacks were seen in Lithuania (38 percent), followed by Latvia (29 percent) and Slovakia (27...

Palestinian foreign minister Riyad al-Maliki said Saturday the Palestinians have petitioned the UN's top court, alleging that the US inauguration of an embassy in Jerusalem was illegal. The Palestinians have filed a lawsuit at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) "for violating...

At least seven Palestinians were killed and 90 others injured by the Israeli army while taking part in ongoing demonstrations along the Gaza-Israel buffer zone, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. In a statement, ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qidra updated the death toll, saying...