G7 Ambassadors said Thursday they were deeply concerned about Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov, who has been on hunger strike for more than a month as he serves a 20-year term in a Russian prison camp.

Yekaterinburg has escaped its dark past of contract killings and organised crime to become a World Cup host city with a more hopeful future.

Some players believe World Cup success is earned through exercise, diet and endless practice drills -- others are convinced it's a matter of wearing lucky underwear.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern gave birth to a baby girl in an Auckland hospital Thursday, becoming only the second world leader to do so while in office.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has coached his North Korean counterpart Kim Jong Un on high-stakes diplomacy. Now he seems poised to give the young autocrat another lesson: how to reform a state-controlled economy while keeping an iron grip on power.

Supermarkets in the West are using their purchasing power to force suppliers to cut their prices, contributing to exploitation and even forced labour of millions of farmers worldwide, a global charity said Thursday.

Pope Francis vowed Thursday to seek deeper "unity" between the Catholic Church and other Christian faiths as he arrived in Geneva, a centre of Protestantism, amid Christianity's waning influence in Europe.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has become only the second leader to give birth while in office, in another milestone for women in politics.

Downward-facing dogs, cobras and warriors sprouted all over Asia on Thursday, including high in the Himalayas, up in the air and under the sea, for International Yoga Day.

A South Korean court has ruled the killing of dogs for meat is illegal, in a landmark decision that animal rights activists said Thursday could pave the way to outlawing eating canines.

President Donald Trump ordered an end to the separation of migrant children from their parents on the US border Wednesday, reversing a tough policy under heavy pressure from his fellow Republicans, Democrats and the international community.

Scientists based in Antarctica welcomed the winter solstice by plunging into icy waters Thursday as part of a "mad tradition" heralding the return of brighter days after weeks of darkness.

Eurozone ministers will on Thursday try to resolve their differences over the terms of Greece's departure from its massive bailout programme with splits over the degree of debt relief needed by cash-strapped Athens.

Lionel Messi is under increased pressure to redeem himself when Argentina face Croatia in Thursday's pivotal match after eternal rival Cristiano Ronaldo scored his fourth goal of the World Cup to send Morocco packing.

The leaders of 10 EU countries will hold crisis talks on migration in Brussels Sunday aimed at countering movement of asylum seekers between member nations which is a source of tensions within the bloc.

Downward-facing dogs, cobras and warriors were set to sprout all over the world Thursday, as the fourth annual International Yoga Day got under way.

Faced with the disturbing images of migrant children separated from their parents at the US border with Mexico that have shocked America and the world, President Donald Trump did not flinch for a long time.

Children separated from their parents at the US-Mexico border "cry and scream" for their mothers, reaching out for them through the chain-link pens where they are being held, a pediatrician who has visited several Texas processing centers said in an interview.

British Prime Minister Theresa May survived another knife-edge Brexit vote in parliament on Wednesday but came under fresh pressure from the European Union to step up the withdrawal negotiations.

Yemen's Huthi rebels vowed to fight on after pro-government forces seized Hodeida airport from them on Wednesday, in a major step towards retaking the port city following a week-long battle.

Uruguay and host nation Russia progressed to the World Cup knockout rounds on Wednesday as Cristiano Ronaldo took an early lead in the race for the Golden Boot.

US President Donald Trump said Wednesday he would sign an executive order to keep migrant families together at the border with Mexico, amid an escalating uproar over the separation of children from their parents.

US lawmakers will vote Thursday on a bill that would end the controversial practice of separating migrant children from parents caught entering the country without papers, House Speaker Paul Ryan said Wednesday.

German police said Wednesday they had foiled a biological attack with last week's arrest of a Tunisian suspected jihadist in possession of the deadly poison ricin and bomb-making material.

While Iceland's World Cup coach is famously a dentist, and its squad has a boardgame publisher and a wine importer in its ranks, goalkeeper-filmmaker Hannes Halldorsson says his job on the side sets him apart.

VAR and a trio of spectacular free kicks have led to a spike in the number of goals from set plays in Russia, with some already calling it "the World Cup of set pieces".

Several key EU leaders will hold crisis talks on migration in Brussels on Sunday to try to find answers ahead of a major summit next week, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said.

Yekaterinburg has escaped its dark past of contract killings and organised crime to become a World Cup host city with a more hopeful future.

Former FIFA president Sepp Blatter said Thursday he believes the World Cup should return to England when Europe next gets its turn to host the tournament.

England captain Harry Kane displays the same level of passion as Diego Maradona, the man who singlehandedly destroyed English hopes in the 1986 World Cup, Tottenham Hotspur manager Mauricio Pochettino says.

Some players believe World Cup success is earned through exercise, diet and endless practice drills -- others are convinced it's a matter of wearing lucky underwear.

A fired-up France are demanding respect as they head into the final Test against New Zealand in Dunedin on Saturday, saying they plan to continue where they left off in the second Test.

England coach Steve Holland believes Gareth Southgate is showing the same key qualities he saw in the likes of Jose Mourinho, Rafael Benitez and Antonio Conte at Chelsea.

Former captain David Beckham has tipped England to play Lionel Messi's Argentina in the World Cup final, reflecting rising optimism about the Three Lions' chances after a positive start in Russia.

Ireland will bid for a prestigious southern hemisphere series win against Australia on Saturday to underline their burgeoning status just over a year ahead of the World Cup.

The All Blacks dismissed the idea Thursday of spicing up the dead-rubber third Test against France by putting the already won Dave Gallaher Trophy back on the line.

Lionel Messi is under increased pressure to redeem himself when Argentina face Croatia in Thursday's pivotal match after eternal rival Cristiano Ronaldo scored his fourth goal of the World Cup to send Morocco packing.

Serbia will attempt to wrap up qualification to the World Cup knockout rounds on Friday as they take on a Switzerland team brimming with confidence after grabbing a draw with Brazil.

A battered and bruised Neymar will aim to get Brazil's World Cup campaign back on track here Friday as the pre-tournament favourites seek to re-assert their title credentials with victory over Costa Rica.

Nigeria take on Iceland on Friday, seeking to salvage their faltering World Cup campaign but wary of the Nordic team's capacity to go toe to toe with their supposed superiors.

Spain coach Fernando Hierro admitted his team had been on the ropes before a lucky Diego Costa goal handed them their first win of the World Cup on Wednesday as dogged Iran came close to causing a major upset.

Uruguay and host nation Russia progressed to the World Cup knockout rounds on Wednesday as Cristiano Ronaldo took an early lead in the race for the Golden Boot.

Formula One heads for an unprecedented run of three successive weekends of races and five in six weeks from this Sunday, starting with the return of the French Grand Prix after almost a decade off the schedule.

Chicago Cubs pitcher Yu Darvish, out four weeks with a right arm injury, threw three innings Wednesday in a simulated game situation and could make a rehabilitation start Monday, according to team officials.

The decision to allow Moroccan midfielder Nordin Amrabat to take to the field at the World Cup on Wednesday just five days after suffering concussion has been criticised by players' union FifPro.

The World Cup produced three tight games on Wednesday as Portugal, Spain and Uruguay won but once again the favourites failed to shine.

AFP Sport picks out some of the best quotes at the World Cup:

Swedish defenseman Rasmus Dahlin is expected to be taken by the Buffalo Sabres with the first selection of the 2018 National Hockey League Draft, which begins Friday in Dallas.

AFP Sport takes a look at some of the stories you may have missed at the World Cup:

Fifth-ranked defending champion Jordan Spieth sees this week's US PGA Travelers Championship as a crucial step ahead of defending the British Open championship next month at Carnoustie.

Whatever becomes of Brazil at this World Cup will inevitably be seen through the prism of Neymar and his state of fitness, but Philippe Coutinho has already shown that he could hold the keys for Tite's side.

England manager Gareth Southgate admitted his World Cup celebrations will be more muted for the remainder of the tournament after dislocating his shoulder while out running on Wednesday.

Four years after injury robbed him of a World Cup winner's medal in Brazil, Germany are set to turn to Marco Reus to help rescue their Russia 2018 campaign.

Uruguay booked their place in the World Cup knockout stage along with Russia on Wednesday, as Luis Suarez scored the winner on his 100th international appearance in a 1-0 victory over Saudi Arabia in Rostov-on-Don.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has become only the second leader to give birth while in office, in another milestone for women in politics.

Sitting humbly on the floor in his orange robes, the spiritual head of the biggest ashram in Rishikesh rejoices at how yoga has spread across the globe in the 50 years since The Beatles first visited the holy city.

Samal Yeslyamova almost burst into tears when she received a surprise award for best actress at the Cannes film festival last month.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is in hospital to give birth, her office said Thursday, handing over duties to her deputy ahead of the delivery.

Paul McCartney on Wednesday announced his first album in five years, "Egypt Station," which he described as a kind of musical travelogue with each song exploring a new area.

George Clooney and John Legend have sent hefty donations to charity and Bruce Springsteen interrupted his Broadway show to decry the border crisis as the entertainment world voiced outrage over the separation of migrant families at the US border.

The first draft of music Mozart wrote for the last act of his opera "The Marriage of Figaro" failed to find a buyer when it went under the hammer in Paris Wednesday.

Janet Jackson has revealed that she suffered an "intense" battle with depression, which she linked to a childhood inferiority complex and societal racism and sexism.

Disney raised its offer for key assets of 21st Century Fox on Wednesday to $71.3 billion to counter a rival bid from Comcast in the latest move in a bidding war that could create a dominant player in the media-entertainment world.

A controversy over Boris Becker's claim that he enjoys diplomatic status from the Central African Republic has added to the clouds hanging over the German ex-tennis star battling financial and marital woes.

British businessman turned BBC TV star Alan Sugar came under fire Wednesday after tweeting a picture of the Senegal national football team with the caption "I recognise some of these guys from the beach in Marbella".

A glamour blogger, a filmmaker and a tech mogul are competing to create a homegrown African rival to Netflix, but poor internet connections and intense competition are proving daunting obstacles.

Baseball pro Moe Berg wasn't much of a star in the diamond but he was an MVP in the theater of war, risking his life behind enemy lines as an Allied spy.

For the first time in the history of London's West End theatre district, a play is being staged in English and French -- Moliere's classic "Tartuffe", transposed into Donald Trump's United States.

The Central African Republic (CAR) said on Tuesday that a diplomatic passport that tennis star Boris Becker claims entitles him to immunity in bankruptcy proceedings in Britain "is a fake".

Irish rocker and global activist Bono met with American lawmakers Tuesday, urging them to press President Donald Trump to abandon his "completely un-American" practice of separating families at the southern border with Mexico.

"Modern Family" co-creator Steve Levitan became Tuesday the latest in a string of Hollywood figures berating Fox over its news division's coverage, announcing he was quitting the entertainment giant.

Italy's Osteria Francescana was crowned the world's best restaurant for the second time on Tuesday by an influential list compiled by British trade magazine Restaurant, beating out top eateries in Spain and France.

Britain's Queen Elizabeth II, as she has done for over 60 years, led the Royal Procession down the finishing straight on Tuesday to get probably racing's most famous carnival Royal Ascot under way.

"Anchorman" star Will Ferrell is set to direct and appear in a Netflix movie based on the Eurovision Song Contest, a glitzy annual musical extravaganza known for its over-the-top costumes, media reports said on Tuesday.

A painstaking restoration of the "Mystic Lamb", a 15th-century Flemish masterpiece by the Van Eyck brothers, was unveiled on Tuesday, revealing a "much more expressive and intense" version of the central image of the giant altarpiece.

The life of Michael Jackson will be coming to Broadway in a musical incorporating the King of Pop's tunes penned by a leading US playwright.

Neymar is famous for his stepovers, but it was his World Cup hair do-over that really got Brazilians talking Tuesday.

An Istanbul court on Tuesday acquitted and freed a popular Turkish rapper who faced up to 10 years in jail on charges of encouraging drug use, on the first day of a trial that had sparked widespread alarm.

Virgil Abloh paid tribute to his friend and longtime collaborator Kanye West as the US designer took star billing as Paris men's fashion week began Tuesday.

Zara Tindall, Queen Elizabeth II's eldest granddaughter, has given birth to a baby girl, Buckingham Palace announced on Tuesday.

Princess Takamado of Japan on Tuesday watched her country play Colombia in the World Cup in the small Russian city of Saransk, becoming the first member of Japan's royal family to visit the country since 1916, Russian state media reported.

Supermarkets in the West are using their purchasing power to force suppliers to cut their prices, contributing to exploitation and even forced labour of millions of farmers worldwide, a global charity said Thursday.

The last polar bear kept in South Korea will be sent to Britain to escape the country's stifling, humid summers and live out his days in more appropriate surroundings, zookeepers said Thursday.

A South Korean court has ruled the killing of dogs for meat is illegal, in a landmark decision that animal rights activists said Thursday could pave the way to outlawing eating canines.

Scientists based in Antarctica welcomed the winter solstice by plunging into icy waters Thursday as part of a "mad tradition" heralding the return of brighter days after weeks of darkness.

Earth's intact forests shrank by an area larger than Austria every year from 2014 to 2016 at a 20 percent faster rate than during the previous decade, scientists said Wednesday as the UN unveiled an initiative to harness the "untapped potential" of the land sector to fight climate change.

The Tyrannosaurus rex is crowned the "lizard king" of the dinosaurs, a historically fierce meat-eater often depicted lashing out its tongue. But researchers said Wednesday this would have been anatomically impossible.

Egypt's shrinking freshwater "Pharaonic Sea" has residents in its nearly 50 surrounding fishing villages worried.

For centuries, the Faroe Islands have hunted pilot whales in ritual fashion, herding them into shallow waters to beach them before stabbing them with knives, turning the water a bloody red.

The Faroe Islands' ritual pilot whale hunt is not only highly controversial, eating the whale meat also poses a health hazard, public health authorities in Denmark's autonomous North Atlantic territory warn, advising against eating it.

Living the high life -- growing up, in other words, at extreme altitude -- forces a developing human body to conserve energy, and that can translated into shorter arms, according to a study published Wednesday.

In a race against time, US federal prosecutors have taken the unusual step of indicting the DNA profile of a man suspected of carrying out a string of rapes in the Washington area more than a decade ago.

German carmaker Audi said Tuesday it had named a new interim chief, a day after prosecutors arrested boss Rupert Stadler in connection with parent company Volkswagen's "dieselgate" scandal.

Crocodiles may be one of the deadliest hunters in the animal kingdom, but in a small village in Burkina Faso it is not unusual to see someone sitting atop one of the fearsome reptiles.

The world's oldest Sumatran orangutan, which had 11 children and 54 descendants spread across the globe, has died aged 62, Australian zoo officials said Tuesday.

At a research facility in Gabon, one isolated building stands behind an electrified fence, under round-the-clock scrutiny by video cameras. The locked-down P4 lab is built to handle the world's most dangerous viruses, including Ebola.

The easing of China's one-child policy was a godsend to Zhang Yinzhe and his wife Xu Mengsha, who had decided they wanted to use in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) to freeze an embryo in the hope of one day having a second child.

Gunnhild Helmsdal's mailbox has six names printed on it and will soon add a seventh: having a big family is nothing unusual in the Faroe Islands where women have the most babies in Europe despite also having the highest rate of employment.

President Donald Trump boasted Monday of the US commercial space industry's deep wallet and enterprising spirit, and vowed US dominance in exploration of the Moon and Mars, as well as any future space race.

Audi chief executive Rupert Stadler was arrested Monday in connection with parent company Volkswagen's "dieselgate" emissions cheating scandal, with prosecutors saying they feared he might try to suppress evidence.

Along sun-splashed shorelines in the US state of Florida, home prices are on the rise, developers are busy building new complexes, and listings just blocks from the beach describe homes that are "not in a flood zone," meaning no flood insurance is required.

An India forestry ranger found himself in a bind after a python briefly strangled him while he posed for pictures with the giant snake.

Audi chief executive Rupert Stadler has been arrested in connection with parent company Volkswagen's "dieselgate" emissions cheating scandal, German prosecutors said Monday.

Flooding in southern Myanmar has caused a landslide at a famed Buddhist pagoda, submerged homes and displaced hundreds of people as monsoon rains batter the country.

Along Florida's sun-splashed shorelines, home prices are on the rise, developers are busy building new complexes, and listings just blocks from the beach describe homes that are "not in a flood zone," meaning no flood insurance is required.

Decades of commercial mountaineering have turned Mount Everest into the world's highest rubbish dump as an increasing number of big-spending climbers pay little attention to the ugly footprint they leave behind.

A message from late British astrophysics giant Stephen Hawking was beamed towards the nearest black hole on Friday as his remains were laid to rest in London's Westminster Abbey.

A major upgrade began Friday for the world's most powerful proton smasher to increase the number of particle collisions inside the Large Hadron Collider and help further explore the fundamental building blocks of the universe.