World News

The southern Philippines plunged into mourning Thursday after a ferry carrying about 250 passengers and crew caught fire, and 31 people drowned or died in the blaze, local authorities said.

Finland will join the NATO military alliance after Turkey’s parliament voted to approve its application but delayed Sweden’s bid to join the military alliance.

People who don’t eat meat can forget about a career in a Finnish military unit protecting Finland’s long border with Russia and other countries, officials say.

Billions of people experience water-related issues on a daily basis, from contaminated drinking water to droughts and floods, with a UN report warning Wednesday that the risk of a global crisis was “imminent.”

The editor-in-chief of banned newspaper Novaya Gazeta and Russia’s Nobel Peace Prize laureate fears Moscow may use nuclear weapons against the West.

A US correspondent for the Wall Street Journal has been arrested and detained in Russia on suspicion of espionage, i24News reports. Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) announced Thursday that WSJ correspondent Evan Gershkovich, aged 31, has been taken into custody in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg.

On Wednesday, Orthodox Christian monks accused of maintaining links with Moscow refused to leave a historic monastery in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, despite a planned government-ordered eviction.

Pope Francis is in a hospital in Rome with a respiratory infection that caused breathing difficulties, the Vatican said Wednesday.

Iran and its proxy forces have attacked U.S. service members in Iraq and Syria 83 times since President Joe Biden entered the Oval Office, but the U.S. has only responded with major strikes four times, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing.

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said on Wednesday that Tehran and Moscow were in the final stages of signing a long-term strategic cooperation agreement. Amir-Abdollahian made the announcement at a meeting with his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, in Moscow, noting that Russia has already finalized its version of the agreement, and the Iranian Foreign Ministry would make the final amendments in less than a month.

Fighting has intensified near a nuclear power plant in Ukraine that is Europe’s largest, further increasing the possibility of a war-related nuclear accident, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency said Tuesday.

Hungary’s parliament overwhelmingly approved the inclusion of Finland into NATO on Monday, but delayed a vote on Sweden’s membership application.

Leading experts warn that the U.S. dollar will soon lose its status as the “world’s reserve currency” after Russian President Vladimir Putin said Russia would start using China’s currency for international payments.

The man whose role in saving more than 1,000 lives during the 1994 Rwandan genocide inspired the film Hotel Rwanda has been released from prison, several officials confirmed Saturday.

Hungary was due to vote for Finland to join the NATO military alliance on Monday, but government supporters declined to accept Sweden’s membership.

Ukraine has lashed out at Russian President Vladimir Putin after he announced that Moscow would place tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus. A key Ukrainian presidential adviser said Sunday that the move comes as Moscow realizes it will eventually lose its invasion of Ukraine.

Europe was approaching more insecurity Sunday after Russia said it would station “tactical nuclear weapons” in Belarus.

Hungary says it won’t arrest Russian President Vladimir Putin if he enters the country despite the International Criminal Court (ICC) warrant for alleged war crimes, including forced deportations of Ukrainian children.

US resident Joe Biden said Friday that the US would respond “forcefully” to protect its personnel after US forces retaliated with airstrikes on sites in Syria used by groups affiliated with Iran’s Revolutionary Guard following a suspected Iranian-linked attack Thursday that killed a US contractor and wounded seven other Americans in northeast Syria.

The man who allegedly defrauded investors of $40 billion in one of the biggest cryptocurrency scandals has been detained in Montenegro, officials said Thursday.