Athens News - News from Athens, the political, economic and cultural centre of Greece, the European Union and the whole world

A fire erupted in a hospital's maternity ward in Islamabad on Wednesday, killing 14 infants, Pakistani authorities said, with the prime minister calling for an investigation.

Mamadou Tahirou is 18 but looks more like a 12-year-old, his frame frail from the ravages of sickle cell disease, which one Senegalese laboratory is hoping to attenuate with affordable drug production.

Icelanders are to vote Saturday on whether to resume entry talks with the European Union amid growing global insecurity, in a referendum seen as going down to the wire.

Country music legend Dolly Parton has died at the age of 80, her representatives confirmed Tuesday. Parton passed away at Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center in Nashville after a brief battle with cancer, surrounded by family and friends. Her sudden death has sent shockwaves through the entertainment industry, prompting an outpouring of tributes from fans and fellow celebrities alike.

Iran and Oman are discussing a temporary transit corridor and mine-clearing for the Strait of Hormuz, but Tehran warned on Wednesday that the vital waterway will not be reopened unless the United States ends the war.

North Korea will send about 100 athletes to compete across 14 sports at the Asian Games in Japan next month, a senior official said, aiming to "bring joy to Marshal Kim Jong Un".

With Dolly Parton's "Jolene" filling the night air, fans of the late country music icon laid flowers at a Tennessee statue of the singer who changed their US state forever.

At a Washington gay bar, Cameron Austin donned a country western outfit replete with cowboy boots, as he sat in the corner sipping a drink while Dolly Parton's "When I'm Gone" blasted through the sound system.

Australian police said Wednesday they were on the hunt for thieves who made off with hundreds of thousands of oysters.

England will aim to put their latest drinking drama behind them when they face Pakistan in the second Test at Lord's starting on Thursday.

A surge in attacks across Thailand's south has put a spotlight on the low-level insurgency by Muslim separatists that has killed thousands of people in the last two decades.

A record number of Japanese players are in the Premier League this season, with clubs attracted by their proven quality, value for money and the "very little risk" involved in signing them.

Japanese Asian Games organisers said Wednesday they were holding "regular discussions" with Asian Olympic chiefs after a report claimed they had asked for the ballooning number of participants to be scaled back.

Asian stocks edged higher Wednesday as oil prices extended a decline on receding concerns about another military flare-up between the United States and Iran, while traders were also nervously awaiting Nvidia's earnings and key US inflation data.

Mathieu Comijn inspected rows of potatoes in a field of cracked earth and browned leaves, pulling from the ground tubers barely the size of ping-pong balls.

Sweat trickling down her face, aspiring teenage boxer Hoorain Zahra works on a punch combination, eager to follow in the footsteps of her idol Aliya Soomro.

Volunteers scanned the dried-up bank of the Danube in northern Bulgaria, close to where receding waters laid bare mammoth bones last month, hoping to find more fossilised fragments exposed by Europe's parching drought.

Anthropic, the OpenAI rival that bet everything on computer coding, is expected to go public within weeks in a listing that could eclipse SpaceX's record Wall Street debut in June.

When President Donald Trump returned to power last year, Julia Curlee, a longtime CIA analyst and transgender woman, opted to continue serving as a senior official at the White House despite right-wing attacks on trans issues.

Australian under-16s are increasing their use of social media apps such as Instagram and Tiktok despite a world-leading ban, data provided by a parental control software company showed Wednesday.

The video game industry is notoriously tight-lipped about its numbers, filled with members-only metrics like wishlists, pre-orders and player numbers, so it can be hard to know which games have actually proven popular and turned a profit.

Adam Mosseri, who oversees Instagram at Meta, admitted in a California court on Tuesday that he touted newly launched safety tools for teens without disclosing low adoption rates from early testing several years ago.

The dream team of Serena Williams and Carlos Alcaraz made a winning start but could not progress to the final stages of US Open's mixed doubles tournament.

Europe's biggest video games show, Gamescom, opened Tuesday with the spotlight on two hit series, "Final Fantasy" and "The Witcher", with the industry seeking a boost in an era of job cuts and fierce competition.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney is more seasoned as a banker than a politician but has shown a confident touch in standing up to US President Donald Trump and navigating a trade war that threatens his nation's economy.

The leader of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, the Washington-backed group at the forefront of the battle against the Islamic State jihadist group, announced their dissolution on Tuesday under a deal with the government.

Loose forward Anton Segner will not play again on the New Zealand tour of South Africa, head coach Dave Rennie said on Tuesday after a 41-35 win over the Lions franchise in Johannesburg.

President Donald Trump's administration suggested Tuesday that the Kennedy Center in Washington could be demolished if courts block his plans to overhaul the performing arts landmark.

Meta knew that its tools for protecting teenagers on Instagram were largely ineffective, witnesses testified at the trial in California where 29 US states are accusing the social media giant of lying about the platform's dangers.

The PGA Tour season from 2028 will culminate in a new matchplay tournament that pits the world's top golfers against one another across two weeks, chief executive officer Brian Rolapp announced Tuesday.

The superstar pairing of Serena Williams and Carlos Alcaraz made a winning debut Tuesday, shrugging off early cobwebs in the opening round of the US Open's mixed doubles tournament.

The death of country music icon Dolly Parton, who kept her distance from the political debates gripping America, offered a rare moment of unity to a divided nation on Tuesday.