World

During his 2 1/2 years as director of the National Gallery of Canada, Jean-François Bélisle has stayed largely out of the news – which is perhaps a welcome relief.

BANGKOK – Thailand and Cambodia agreed on Saturday to halt weeks of fierce border clashes, the worst fighting in years between the Southeast Asian countries ‌that has included fighter jets sorties, ‌exchange of rocket fire ‌and artillery barrages.

Russia attacked Kyiv and other regions of Ukraine with missiles and drones on Saturday, ahead of what President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said would be a key meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump to work out a deal to end nearly four years of war.

Uruguay’s central bank chief wants to convince savers in one of Latin America’s most dollarized nations that their love affair with the US currency is bad for both the economy and their pocketbooks.

Israel became the first country to formally recognize the self-declared Republic of Somaliland as an independent and sovereign state on Friday – a decision that could reshape regional dynamics and test Somalia’s longstanding opposition to secession.

Thailand claimed that Cambodia fired heavy weaponry into its territory on Friday as talks on a possible ceasefire between the two countries continued. The Cambodian action early Friday “forced the Thai side to take necessary self-defense measures,” according to a statement published at a daily press briefing. One Thai soldier was also “severely injured” on Thursday after stepping on what ...

Japan’s industry ministry is set to nearly quadruple its budgeted support for cutting-edge semiconductors and artificial intelligence development to about ¥1.23 trillion ($7.9 billion) for the fiscal year starting in April.

LAGOS – By publicly cooperating with the United States on a Christmas Day airstrike, Nigeria's government may have averted humiliating unilateral military action threatened a month ago by President Donald Trump. 

KYIV – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will discuss territorial issues, the main stumbling block in talks to end the war, with U.S. President Donald Trump in Florida on Sunday, as a 20-point peace framework and a security guarantee deal near completion. 

Suspected Boko Haram insurgents detonated an explosive device at a mosque in Maiduguri, the capital of Nigeria’s northeastern Borno state, killing at least five people, police said. About 35 people were wounded in the blast at the Juma’at mosque, which occurred during prayers late on Wednesday, state police spokesman, Nahum Daso told Lagos-based broadcaster Channels TV. Nigeria has been ...

Ukraine said its drones struck the largest Russian gas processing plant in the Orenburg region, which also processes gas from Kazakhstan’s Karachaganak oil and gas condensate field. Long-range UAVs successfully hit the Orenburg gas processing plant, about 1,050 miles (1,700 km) east of Kyiv, said a person familiar with the matter who declined to be identified as the information isn’t public. ...

Pope Leo XIV called for compassion and global peace in his first Christmas Mass in Rome on Wednesday.

At 5:55 p.m. on a Friday evening in Gloucester, England, David Purchase was still singing - 41 hours and 55 minutes after he had begun.

A majority of Russians expect the war in Ukraine to end in 2026, state pollster VTsIOM said on Wednesday, in a sign that the Kremlin could be testing public reaction to a possible peace settlement as diplomatic efforts to end the conflict intensify.

The U.S. Coast Guard is waiting for additional forces to arrive before potentially attempting to board and seize a Venezuela-linked oil tanker it has been pursuing since Sunday, a U.S. official and a source familiar with the matter told Reuters.

A Walt Disney World vacation could soon come with a new U.S. government mandate for the theme park-loving British and tourists from dozens of other countries: Hand over five years of social media history.

The latest batch of Jeffrey Epstein files has cast renewed scrutiny on the links between Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and Epstein - a relationship that has already sent the former prince into what is widely seen as royal exile.