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India will overtake China to become the world's most populous nation by the middle of this year, the United Nations projected Wednesday, the culmination of decades-long trends and a position the South Asian country is likely to retain for centuries to come.

France risks shortages of abortion pills as US states build up stocks during an intensifying legal and political battle over reproductive rights, the country's gender equality authority has warned.

Church bells and sirens sounded across the Polish capital on Wednesday to mark 80 years since the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, when hundreds of Jewish insurgents revolted against the Nazi German occupiers.

On motorcycles, cars, buses, planes or by boat, millions of Indonesians are travelling to their hometowns in the annual Eid holiday exodus that is expected to peak by Thursday.

Ariarne Titmus powered to the Australian 400m freestyle title with ease Wednesday -- but in a time well outside Canadian teenager Summer McIntosh, who smashed the Olympic champion's world record last month.

Animal experts will decide in coming days whether an ailing elephant at a zoo in Pakistan needs to be euthanised after it collapsed in its pen last week and has since failed to stand up, officials said.

India is set to overtake China as the world's most populous country by the end of June, UN estimates showed Wednesday, posing huge challenges to a nation with creaking infrastructure and insufficient jobs for millions of young people.

Sudan has degenerated into a battleground for two rival generals, but they are backed by complex webs of international alliances with conflicting interests that could imperil the country's future, analysts say.

A giant panda on loan from China to Thailand who captivated animal lovers through a 24-hour live broadcast of her antics died on Wednesday aged 21, said the zoo where she was housed.

German transport union EVG on Wednesday called for a rail strike as workers demand higher wages to cope with high rates of inflation, the latest industrial action in Europe's largest economy.

UK inflation slowed last month but held above 10 percent on soaring food prices, official data showed Wednesday, further fuelling a cost-of-living crisis despite a series of aggressive interest-rate hikes.

Rising talent Tilak Varma has earned predictions that he is destined to play for his country after lighting up the Indian Premier League with his fearless batting.

Thousands of residents fled Sudan's capital Wednesday as fighting between the army and paramilitaries, that has killed around 200 people, raged for a fifth day after a 24-hour truce collapsed.

At dusk in northern Myanmar, fighters from the Ta'ang National Liberation Army patrol their frontlines and mark the positions of junta troops, their decades-long conflict with the military fraught with new risks since the coup.

Cuba's President Miguel Diaz-Canel was all set to clinch a second five-year term via a parliamentary vote Wednesday as the sole candidate in a country where political opposition is illegal.

The US Supreme Court will step into the divisive and emotional battle over the abortion drug mifepristone Wednesday, when it is expected to rule on tough new court-ordered restrictions on the widely used pill.

Markets were mixed on Wednesday as traders tried to assess the Federal Reserve's next moves in the fight against inflation, with some appearing to adopt a "defensive" approach.

Chinese authorities said on Wednesday they had detained a dozen people over a hospital fire in Beijing that left at least 29 dead and forced desperate survivors to jump out of windows to escape.

UK inflation slowed slightly last month but held stubbornly above 10 percent, official data showed Wednesday, further fuelling a cost-of-living crisis despite an aggressive series of interest-rate hikes.

A museum emblematic of Russia's post-Soviet human rights movement has shut its doors in Moscow amid a clampdown on freedoms since the onset of the Kremlin's offensive in Ukraine.

The screeching artillery shells crashing down from Russian positions in the embattled andrubble-strewn city of Bakhmut in east Ukraine shake 20-year-old sapper Denis the most.

India is set to overtake China as the world's most populous country by mid-year with almost three million more people, UN estimates showed on Wednesday.

One man mimes his bones being broken, a woman recounts her surrender to religious brainwashing, and a third man replicates his confinement in a tiny prison cell.

Fox News averted a potentially humiliating defamation trial after a last-minute settlement Tuesday, but it took a reputational beating that observers said was unlikely to spur the influential broadcaster to tame its "disinformation engine."

The death toll in a fire that ripped through a hospital in China's capital Beijing has risen to 29, a city official said Wednesday.

Swedish director Ruben Ostlund vowed to keep his ego in check as jury head in Cannes, and also told AFP why his next film may cause the biggest walkout in the festival's history.

For months, residents of L'Espluga de Francoli have been saving water in bottles and foregoing showers to cope with long hours of daily water rationing as northeastern Spain suffers one of its worst droughts in decades.

Wallabies backrower Lachlan Swinton was banned for seven weeks Wednesday for a dangerous tackle, ruling him out of the rest of the regular Super Rugby Pacific season and dealing his World Cup hopes a blow.

Golden State Warriors star Draymond Green was hit with a one-game suspension on Tuesday after stamping on Sacramento Kings player Domantas Sabonis during the NBA champions' game two playoff defeat.

Rather than fixating on the impact of the world's soaring population, the world should look at women's reproductive rights to shore up "demographic resilience," the UN said Wednesday.

Major winners Brooks Koepka, Dustin Johnson and Bryson DeChambeau said Wednesday there was no animosity towards them at the Masters earlier this month despite their defection to LIV splitting the golf world.

As Chelsea owner Toddy Boehly surveyed the wreckage of his club's season from hell after their Champions League exit on Tuesday, the American might have pondered just how long it will be before they feature in the competition again.