Deep into the night, the sound of drums reverberated through the township of Mufakose in Zimbabwe's capital city. Barefoot dancers pulsated to the beat in colorful clothing and gory masks. Some had their faces and heads covered with poultry feathers.

In the past, the mere sight of members of the group performing the Gule Wamkulu ritual dance would have sent shivers down the spine of many outsiders. But on this night dozens of people, including young children, squeezed in for a closer look, their cellphones lighting up the spectacle.

Men usually outnumber and outrank women negotiators in climate talks, except when it comes to global warming's thorniest diplomatic issue this year — reparations for climate disasters.

The issue of polluting nations paying vulnerable countries is handed over to women, who got the issue on the agenda after 30 years. Whether this year's United Nations climate talks in Egypt succeed or fail mostly will come down to the issue called loss and damage in international negotiations, officials and experts say. It's an issue that intertwines equity and economics, balancing the needs of those hurt and those who would pay.

On the Instagram accounts of fashion models and superstars last month, the sheikhdom of Qatar looked like one glittering party.

High-heeled designers descended on exhibition openings and fashion shows in downtown Doha. Celebrities, including a prominent gay rights campaigner, snapped selfies on a pulsing dance floor.

Climate activists poured black liquid over a glass screen protecting Gustav Klimt's masterpiece "Death and Life" in Vienna on Tuesday, in the latest protest at inaction over global heating.

The family of imprisoned Egyptian activist Alaa Abdel-Fattah said Tuesday they received a letter from him saying he has ended his hunger strike.

In a statement, the family said that Abdel-Fattah's mother, Laila Soueif, received a short note in her son's handwriting via prison authorities. The letter is dated Monday. In it, he asks her to come for her monthly visit to him in prison on Thursday.

The American University of Beirut was ranked 1st in the MENA region in sustainability and tied with Princeton University at the 140th place globally in the QS World University Rankings (WUR): Sustainability 2023, the university said in a statement Tuesday.

In its first edition, the QS Sustainability Rankings were announced by the Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) university ranking agency. The rankings looked at 700 of the world’s top universities that were deemed eligible and compared them against environmental and social sustainability metrics, to see which universities are doing the most to tackle major environmental, social, and governance (ESG) challenges. "The American University of Beirut was the only university in Lebanon to be ranked and number one in the MENA Region," the statement said.

The mascots for the 2024 Paris Olympics and Paralympics have been revealed — a Phrygian cap.

The soft red cap, also known as a liberty cap, is an updated version of a conical hat worn in antiquity in places such as Persia, the Balkans, Thrace, Dacia and Phrygia, a place in modern day Turkey where the name originates. It later became a symbol of the pursuit of liberty in the French Revolution — and is still worn by the figure of Marianne, the national personification of France since that time.

Norwegian police said two people tried in vain Friday to glue themselves to Edvard Munch's 1893 masterpiece "The Scream" at an Oslo museum and no harm was reported to the painting of a waif-like figure appearing to scream.

Police said they were alerted by the National Museum of Norway and had three people under their "control." A third person filmed the pair that tried to affix to the painting, Norwegian news agency NTB said.

Three years ago, Fadel Abbas marched with tens of thousands of fellow Iraqis chanting for the "fall of the regime" in Baghdad's Tahrir Square, meaning "liberation" in Arabic.

Over a million sports fans will go to Qatar for the World Cup in November and December, a spectacle that typically turns host countries into a nonstop party. But this year may be different.

The tiny, conservative Muslim nation may show little tolerance for the booze-fueled hooliganism that has unfolded at tournaments past.