WORLD NEWS

New coronavirus infections in Russia have reached an all-time high, the third consecutive daily record as the highly contagious omicron variant spreads through the country.

A cruise ship with hundreds of passengers has diverted to the Bahamas after a U.S. judge granted an order to seize the vessel as part of a lawsuit over $4 million in unpaid fuel.

Former Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi has been undergoing a series of medical examinations in a Milan hospital.

Police in Brussels have fired water cannons and tear gas to disperse violent demonstrations against COVID-19 vaccinations and restrictions.

Authorities in Cameroon say at least 17 people have died and seven others are seriously injured after a fire broke out at a nightclub and spread to an area where cooking gas was stored.

France says one of its soldiers has been killed in a mortar attack on a base in Mali.

Farmers, cattle-breeders, hunters and opposition supporters have descended on Spain's capital of Madrid to protest environmental and economic policies by Spain’s left-of-center government that they say are hurting rural communities.

Pope Francis has expressed his concern over “rising tensions” in Ukraine that threaten peace, and called for political talks that put at the center "human brotherhood instead of partisan interests."

People in a Beijing district with some 2 million residents have been ordered to undergo mass coronavirus testing following a series of infections as China tightened anti-disease controls ahead of the Winter Olympics.

Residents in Burkina Faso's capital say gunfire has erupted in the same area as embattled President Roch Marc Christian Kabore’s home.

The lawyer of a well-known Turkish journalist says she has been remanded in custody pending a trial for insulting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Russia's Foreign Ministry has rejected a British claim that Russia is seeking to replace Ukraine’s government with a pro-Moscow administration and that former Ukrainian lawmaker Yevheniy Murayev is being considered as a potential candidate.

Security forces have fired tear gas at protesters barricading the streets and throwing rocks in Burkina Faso’s capital, as anger grows at the government’s inability to stop jihadist attacks spreading across the country.

A British politician who accuses the government of blackmailing opponents of Prime Minister Boris Johnson says he will take his allegations to the police.

Officials and activists say Kurdish-led fighters advanced slowly under the cover of U.S.-led coalition air power in Syria’s northeast.

The sweeping “zero-tolerance” policies that China has employed to protect its people and economy from COVID-19 may, paradoxically, make it harder for the country to exit the pandemic.

With tens of thousands of Russian troops positioned near Ukraine, the Kremlin has kept the U.S. and its allies guessing about its next moves in the worst security crisis to emerge between Moscow and the West since the Cold War.

Yemen's Houthi rebels and an aid group say the death toll from a Saudi-led coalition airstrike that hit a prison run by the rebels has climbed to at least 82 detainees.

A Florida man has been charged with human smuggling after the bodies of four people, including a baby and a teen, were found in Canada near the U.S. border.

A top U.N. official says that the Islamic extremist insurgency in northeast Nigeria is a “very, very dangerous (and) very threatening” crisis that needs more than $1 billion in aid in 2022 to assist those hit by the decade-long conflict.

The Biden administration has announced policy changes to attract international students specializing in science, technology, engineering and math.

Ministers from European Union nations under pressure from unauthorized migration are asking for more action to strengthen and protect the bloc’s external borders as well as for regulations to return migrants to their homelands.

China has criticized Washington for imposing sanctions on Chinese companies accused of exporting missile technology, and accused the United States of hypocrisy for selling nuclear-capable cruise missiles.

Pope Francis is vowing to provide justice to victims of clergy sexual abuse after an independent audit faulted retired Pope Benedict XVI for having botched four cases of abuse when he was archbishop of Munich, Germany.