The head of the International Monetary Fund called Friday for quick action to end uncertainty over Britain's vote to leave the European Union, which she said is dampening global economic growth.

The IMF cut this year's global growth forecast by 0.1 percentage points to 3.1 percent in a report released this week due to the shockwaves of the British vote, said Christine Lagarde.

Donald Trump rallied Republicans by vowing he alone could fix a nation adrift in a dangerous world, storming into an election showdown with Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee determined to become America's first woman president.

The billionaire and former reality TV star electrified the Republican National Convention by delivering the speech of his life, promising to restore security, clamp down on immigration and put America first.

Nigeria's military says it has rescued 80 children and women held captive by the Boko Haram extremist group in a remote northeastern village.

Army spokesman Col. Sani Kukasheka Usman says they were freed Tuesday by troops who attacked a gathering of the Islamic fighters at Gangere village in Borno state.

Torrential rain lashing northern China in recent days has left nearly 100 people dead or missing, official figures showed.

At least 24 people in the provinces of Hebei, which surrounds Beijing, Shanxi, Henan and Shaanxi have been confirmed dead in a rainstorm that has been pounding the region since Monday, according to figures from the civil affairs ministry.

Hizbullah on Wednesday lashed out at Syria's rebel groups after a video circulated on social media showed rebel fighters from the Nurredin Zinki group beheading a young boy after capturing him north of Syria's second city Aleppo.

An explosion has struck a southern Syrian town and there are conflicting reports on the cause of the blast.

Vice President Joe Biden has met with Australia's prime minister amid America's continued push to boost its presence in the Asia-Pacific region.

Biden is in Australia as part of a tour of the Pacific. On Tuesday, he also met with troops aboard an Australian navy ship, where he shook hands with veterans of Middle East conflicts and praised Australia for being a close military ally.

The lawyer of a dual British-Australian national indicted in a botched attempt to kidnap two Australian-Lebanese children at the center of a custody battle has said that his client will post bail and be released.

Human Rights Watch is urging an end to "forced anal examinations" with a report documenting them in eight countries, mostly in Africa, saying the practice is based on flawed ideas about supposedly proving homosexual conduct.

In front-line villages of south Lebanon, the posters of Hizbullah members killed fighting Israel 10 years ago still stand, but have faded. Now rising up around them is a new generation of posters, bearing the faces of young fighters from the group killed in Syria.

They reflect Hizbullah's shift from decades of fighting Israel, a cause that at one time earned it soaring popularity across Lebanon and the Arab and Muslim world, to the far less popular role of fighting in defense of Syria's embattled president, Bashar Assad.