World News

In a significant concession to the nation, French President Emmanuel Macron said Tuesday that he “regrets” his decision to call early parliamentary elections in June.

Finland last week seized an oil tanker that was taking oil to Russia after Finnish authorities suspected the Russian-linked vessel of involvement in “grave sabotage” by severing power and internet cables in the Baltic Sea on Christmas Day, Sky News reports.

In a significantly more aggressive approach to dealing with Mexican drug cartels, Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum recently sent thousands of troops and heavy weaponry to quell an eruption of intra-cartel violence in Sinaloa state, Reuters reports.

Corruption suspects in China prepare for a Chinese New Year behind bars across the Communist-run nation. Chinese President Xi Jinping has reportedly built or expanded more than 200 specialized detention facilities nationwide to interrogate those allegedly involved in graft.

Investigations into a significant security breach were ongoing Tuesday after China-backed experts allegedly managed to hack the U.S. Treasury Department’s computers, “stealing” documents in what officials called a “major incident.”

Russia and Ukraine have exchanged hundreds of prisoners of war in a deal brokered by the United Arab Emirates, officials confirmed.

Authorities say at least 71 people have died in southern Ethiopia after a truck packed with passengers plunged into a river after returning from a wedding event.

Croatian President Zoran Milanovic, a critic of the European Union and NATO aid to Ukraine, won the first round of presidential elections on Sunday. Still, he did not receive enough votes to avoid a runoff on January 12.

Georgia’s pro-Western head-of-state said Sunday that she would remain the “only legitimate president” despite a new leader being sworn in following a controversial election. Salome Zourabichvili made the comments amid a turbulent inauguration of her successor, a former soccer star who critics view as a far-right pro-Russian politician.

Authorities say that among the 181 people aboard the Jeju Air flight from Bangkok, all but two were killed after the aircraft crashed during an emergency landing at Muan International Airport in South Korea on Sunday morning local time.

Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula, annexed by Russia a decade ago, still faced an ecological disaster Sunday from a major oil spill, two weeks after two tankers were hit by a storm in the Black Sea, killing one crew member, Russian officials announced.

Azerbaijani government sources and survivors say a Russian surface-to-air missile caused the Azerbaijan Airlines plane crash in Kazakhstan on Wednesday, killing 38 of the 67 people on board. The United States also suggested that Russia was behind the crash, raising concerns about air safety in the region amid an ongoing war between Ukraine and Russia.

The United States said Friday that it has evidence suggesting Russian air defense systems may have shot down the Azerbaijan Airlines plane that crashed in Kazakhstan this week.

Russia’s aviation authority claimed Friday that the Azerbaijan Airlines plane that crashed on Wednesday “deviated” from its planned destination of Grozny “due to heavy fog and Ukrainian drones.”

The NATO chief announced Friday that the military alliance would strengthen its presence in the Baltic Sea following Russia’s suspected sabotage of an undersea power cable between Finland and Estonia.

South Korea’s political crisis deepened Friday as the opposition-controlled parliament voted to impeach acting President Han Duck-soo despite loud protests by governing party lawmakers.

A bus carrying dozens of people veered off the road, landing in a lake in Norway and killing several people, authorities say.

Hundreds of Christians in Syria took to the streets of Damascus on Tuesday to protest the destruction of a Christmas tree in the Christian-majority town of Suqaylabiyah, near Hama, Politico reports. The tree was burned down just over two weeks after the ousting of President Bashar al-Assad by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) Islamic insurgent group on December 8.

An increasing number of mass graves are being discovered in Syria since the brutal rule of dictator Bashar al-Assad came to an end at the hands of the Islamic insurgent group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) on December 8, TRT reports. Last week, an international war crimes prosecutor said the mass grave sites in Syria show Assad had operated the “machinery of death” against anyone he considered an enemy.

Sudanese civilians are dealing with famine in addition to the death, displacement, maiming, and trauma brought on them by the war for power between Sudan’s National Army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces that broke out in April 2023, Courthouse News reports.