World News

The Iraqi government estimates $100 billion is needed nationwide to rebuild cities and towns left in ruins by more than three years of war against the Islamic State group. Local leaders in Mosul, the biggest city held by IS, say that amount is needed to rehabilitate their city alone.

A blast ripped through a supermarket in Russia’s St Petersburg on Wednesday evening, injuring at least 10 shoppers, investigators said.

The United States announced sanctions on two North Korean officials behind their country’s ballistic missile program on Tuesday, while Russia reiterated an offer to mediate to ease tensions between Washington and Pyongyang.

Russia has begun forming a ‘permanent presence’ at two military bases in Syria, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said.

Russia will get a country-wide biometric database for financial services starting next summer, the central bank said.

The Royal Navy monitored a series of Russian warships around Britain over Christmas, as the Defence Secretary said Britain would not be intimidated.

Lamenting ‘the winds of war’ blowing around the world, Pope Francis in his traditional Christmas message on Monday called for a two-state solution to find peace in the Middle East and prayed that confrontation can be overcome on the Korean Peninsula.

North Korea on Sunday called the latest U.N. sanctions to target the country ‘an act of war’ that violates its sovereignty, and said it is a ‘pipe dream’ for the United States to think it will give up its nuclear weapons.

Russian election officials on Monday barred opposition leader Alexei Navalny from running against President Vladimir Putin.

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley announced Sunday that the United States had slashed the U.N.’s budget by more than $285 million for fiscal 2018.

The Kremlin says Russian President Vladimir Putin has spoken to German Chancellor Angela Merkel to explain Russia’s decision to withdraw its military observers from a joint group monitoring the truce in eastern Ukraine.

Now that they’ve helped vanquish the Islamic State from much of Iraq, a battle-hardened militia with close ties to Iran may be training its sights on the remaining U.S.-led coalition troops scattered across the country.

Catalonia’s separatists look set to regain power in the wealthy Spanish region after local elections on Thursday, deepening the nation’s political crisis in a sharp rebuke to Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy and European Union leaders who backed him.

Islamic State terrorists are threatening Christmas and New Year’s attacks in major cities across the US and Europe.

President Trump dared the United Nations Wednesday to vote against his decision to move the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, saying ‘we’ll save a lot’ in foreign aid cuts for countries that cross his administration.

Shots were fired after a North Korean defector fled to the South on Thursday across the DMZ, the land border that divides the peninsula, South Korean military officials said.

The Brexit transition period should end on 31 December 2020, with a clear view what sort of relationship the EU and UK will have afterwards, the EU Commission proposed on Wednesday (20 December).

The Polish government has accused the European commission of a politically motivated attack after the EU’s executive body triggered a process that could see the country stripped of voting rights in Brussels, over legal changes that the bloc claims threaten the independence of the judiciary.

President Trump’s new national security blueprint labeling Russia and China ‘strategic competitors’ struck a nerve in Moscow and Beijing, with both criticizing the ‘America First’ approach as isolationist and reminiscent of Cold War-style posturing by Washington.

Nikki Haley, United States Ambassador to the United Nations, said that based on a new report by the U.N. Secretary General, new pressure on Iran’s continued behavior could lead to a new resolution against the Tehran regime or the strengthening present ones.