The free-speech advocate was among several activists detained ahead of President Nicolas Maduro's swearing-in last week.

The 'J20' prosecutions set a dangerous precedent for future crackdowns on dissent, advocates warn.

A ceasefire agreement has been announced between Israel and Hamas, but what will displaced Palestinians come back to?

Video shows the will of Palestinian activist and journalist Ahmed Abu al-Roos who was killed in Gaza.

PM Keir Starmer says UK will deliver a 'mobile air defence system' and bolster maritime cooperation with Ukraine.

Defending champ Jannik Sinner moved through to the third round while last year's runner-up, Daniil Medvedev, is out.

US President-elect Donald Trump assumes office with a wide-ranging 'Day One' list of executive orders.

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There were scenes of celebration on the streets across the Middle East and beyond after the Gaza ceasefire deal.

Rights groups say police used starvation as a weapon to force out illegal miners, resulting in close to 80 deaths.

The Eintracht Frankfurt star is having a breakout Bundesliga season, and his profile is growing rapidly outside Germany.

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump says he wants the United States to be the world leader in artificial intelligence and crypto currency. To that end, he has tapped a Silicon Valley entrepreneur and investor to be the AI and crypto czar. Michelle Quinn has the story.

The Israeli military has launched attacks across Gaza hours after the ceasefire announcement between Israel and Hamas.

Human Rights Watch’s annual report says liberal democracies were generally ‘not reliable’ on human rights.

The announcement of a Gaza ceasefire agreement has left many Palestinians and Israelis with ‘mixed feelings.'

Pupils celebrate being reunited at school as a building opens with nine new classrooms.

Pupils give their school dog - Poppy the cockapoo - a glowing report, saying "she keeps everyone happy".

At the end of the day, there is nothing ‘beautiful’ about imperialism.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida — Blue Origin's giant New Glenn rocket blasted off from Florida early Thursday morning on its first mission to space, an inaugural step into Earth's orbit for Jeff Bezos' space company as it aims to rival SpaceX in the satellite launch business. Thirty stories tall with a reusable first stage, New Glenn launched around 2 a.m. ET (0700 GMT) from Blue Origin's launchpad at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, its seven engines thundering for miles under cloudy skies on its second liftoff attempt this week. Hundreds of employees at the company's Kent, Washington headquarters and its Cape Canaveral, Florida rocket factory roared in applause as Blue Origin VP Ariane Cornell announced the rocket's second stage made it to orbit, achieving a long-awaited milestone. "We hit our key, critical, number-one objective, we got to orbit safely," Cornell said on a company live stream. "And y'all we did it on our first go." The rocket's reusable first stage booster was due to land on a barge in the Atlantic Ocean after separating from its second stage, but failed to make that landing, Cornell confirmed. Telemetry from the booster blacked out minutes after liftoff. "We did in fact lose the booster," Cornell said. The culmination of a decade-long, multi-billion-dollar development journey, the mission marks Blue Origin's first trek to Earth's orbit in the 25 years since Bezos founded the company. Bezos told Reuters on Sunday, before Blue Origin's first launch attempt, that he was most nervous about landing the booster. But he added that sticking the landing would be the "icing on the cake" if they could achieve the milestone of getting the payload to its intended orbit. Secured inside New Glenn's payload bay for the mission is the first prototype of Blue Origin's Blue Ring vehicle, a maneuverable spacecraft the company plans to sell to the Pentagon and commercial customers for national security and satellite servicing missions. The rocket's first attempt to launch on Monday was scrubbed around 3 a.m. ET because ice had accumulated on a propellant line. On Thursday, the company cited no issues ahead of launch. Bezos monitored the launch from a few miles away in Blue Origin's mission control room, wearing a large headset and flanked by dozens of launch staff. The company's CEO, Dave Limp, was next to him. New Glenn is expected to press ahead with a backlog of dozens of missions worth hundreds of millions of dollars, including up to 27 launches for Amazon's Kuiper satellite internet network that will rival SpaceX's Starlink service. New Glenn is the latest U.S. rocket to debut in recent years as governments and private companies beef up their space programs and race to challenge Elon Musk's SpaceX and its workhorse Falcon 9. NASA's giant Space Launch System rocket had a successful debut in 2022, as did the Vulcan rocket last year from United Launch Alliance, Boeing and Lockheed Martin's joint launch venture. New Glenn is roughly twice as powerful as Falcon 9, the world's most active rocket, with a payload bay diameter two times larger to fit bigger batches of satellites. Blue Origin has not disclosed the rocket's launch pricing. Falcon 9 starts at around $62 million. The development of New Glenn has spanned three Blue Origin CEOs and faced numerous delays as SpaceX grew into an industry juggernaut. SpaceX's giant, next-generation Starship rocket in development, which New Glenn will also compete with, is expected to further rattle the industry with cheap rides to space and full reusability. Bezos in late 2023 moved to speed things up at Blue Origin, prioritizing the development of New Glenn and its BE-4 engines. He named Limp, an Amazon veteran, as CEO, who employees say introduced a sense of urgency to compete with SpaceX.

His camp says he is exploring options to 'create space to put deal in place' after media report on executive order plan.