WORLD

Munich, Germany | AFP |  Organisers of this year’s Gay Pride week in Munich have a group of rather wild partners — penguins, giraffes and lions at the city zoo where tours are being run about same-sex love in the animal kingdom. The Munich zoo has joined Pride week with …

Avignon, France | AFP |  The reality of her homeland’s lurch to the far right has seen artists branded as leftists and criminals, laments Brazilian director Christiane Jatahy, who only wishes her theatre piece on migration were actually a fiction. The documentary-style work by the 51-year-old Rio-born Jatahy is loosely based …

Washington, United States | AFP | R. Kelly has been arrested on child pornography and other charges, the New York Times reported, in the latest criminal investigation into the R&B superstar dogged by allegations of sexual misconduct. The 52-year-old, whose legal name is Robert Kelly, was taken into custody by …

Palermo, Italy | AFP |  The fate of an alleged people trafficking kingpin who insists he is a victim of mistaken identity hangs in the balance Friday, with a verdict expected in a trial against him in Italy. Eritrean national Medhanie Yehdego Mered is accused of being “the General” of …

Madrid, Spain | AFP |  With less than two weeks before a parliamentary vote on his investiture, Spain’s acting Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez is struggling to win support from other parties to form a new government and avoid fresh elections. His Socialist party won 123 seats in early polls in April, …

Washington, United States | AFP | Twitter said Thursday some users could not access the messaging service amid reports of an outage in some parts of the world. “We are currently investigating issues people are having accessing Twitter,” a spokesperson said in an email. “We’ll keep you updated on what’s happening.” The monitoring website Down …

Twitter acknowledges outages affecting some users Washington, United States | AFP |  Twitter said Thursday some users could not access the messaging service amid reports of an outage in some parts of the world. “We are currently investigating issues people are having accessing Twitter,” a spokesperson said in an email. …

Paris, France | AFP | France on Thursday became the first major economy to impose a tax on digital giants, with parliament passing the legislation in defiance of a probe ordered by President Donald Trump that could trigger reprisal tariffs. The new law aims at plugging a taxation gap that has …

Dubai, United Arab Emirates | AFP | A surprise UAE troop drawdown in war-torn Yemen aims to restore the Gulf country’s reputation, but may strain ties with key ally Saudi Arabia at a time of heightened tensions with Iran, experts say. “The political, reputational and operational risks Abu Dhabi incurred in …

Vatican City, Holy See | AFP | The Vatican will dig up two graves Thursday after an anonymous tip-off that they may contain the remains of an Italian teenager who went missing 36 years ago. Emanuela Orlandi, the daughter of Vatican employee, was last seen leaving a music class aged 15, …