World

  A man rides on a bike in front of the mail office which was destroyed by a Russian airstrike in Kurakhove, Donetsk region, Ukraine, Nov. 7, 2024. KURAKHOVE, Ukraine — Set on Ukraine\'s eastern front, Kurakhove is surrounded on three sides, with Russian forces just under 3 kilometers from the devastated city center. Yet between 700 and 1,000 local residents remain, most of them living in the basements of apartment buildings, without running water, heating or electricity. The only place to charge phones is in the basement of the building now housing the city administration. The exact number of people is impossible to determine because, since mid-October, no humanitarian volunteers have come to Kurakhove. Under attack from artillery, m...

  Beijing — China has published baselines for a contested shoal in the South China Sea it seized from the Philippines, a move that\'s likely to increase tensions over overlapping territorial claims. The Foreign Ministry on Sunday posted online geographic coordinates for the baselines around Scarborough Shoal. A nation\'s territorial waters and exclusive economic zone are typically defined as the distance from the baselines. Both China and the Philippines claim Scarborough Shoal and other outcroppings in the South China Sea. China seized the shoal, which lies west of the main Philippine island of Luzon, in 2012 and has since restricted access to Filipino fishermen there. A 2016 ruling by an international arbitration court found that most Ch...

  FILE - Somalia's Defense Minister Abdulkadir Mohamed Nur speaks at a press conference in Mogadishu on Dec. 21, 2022 after the arrival of the first group of Somali soldiers trained in Eritrea. A senior Somali official insisted Saturday that Ethiopia will not participate in a new African Union peacekeeping mission starting in January. The two nations remain deadlocked over a Memorandum of Understanding that Ethiopia signed with the breakaway region, Somaliland, earlier this year. “I can say that Ethiopia is the only government we know of so far that will not participate in the new AU mission because it has violated our sovereignty and national unity," Somalia Defense Minister Abdulkadir Mohamed Nur said Saturday in a government...

  Rescue workers and volunteers search for victims under the rubble of a destroyed building hit in an Israeli airstrike, in Aalmat village, northern Lebanon, Nov. 10, 2024. Israeli airstrikes killed dozens of people in Lebanon and northern Gaza on Sunday, even as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President-elect Donald Trump have been discussing the way forward for when Trump takes office in January. The Israeli leader said he has spoken with Trump three times since the U.S. presidential election last week and that they “see eye-to-eye on the Iranian threat in all its aspects, and on the dangers they reflect.” Netanyahu said he sees “great opportunities facing Israel, in the area of peace and its expansion,” but did not e...

  Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto attend a welcome ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China, Nov. 9, 2024. Beijing — China and Indonesia signed deals worth $10 billion at the Indonesia-China Business Forum in Beijing on Sunday, spanning sectors including food, new energy, technology, and biotechnology, Chinese state media reported. The forum followed a meeting on Saturday between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto, who was in China through Sunday, the first country he has visited since taking office last month. Prabowo, who won Indonesia\'s presidential election in February, also chose China for his first visit as president-elect, underscoring ...

  FILE - Pistachios are hand-sorted at the Wonderful Pistachios & Almonds processing plant in Lost Hills, California, Oct. 25, 2024. Lost Hills, California — In a sprawling plant in the heart of California\'s farmland, millions of shells rush down a metallic chute and onto a conveyor belt where they are inspected, roasted, packaged and shipped off to groceries around the world. Pistachios are growing fast in California, where farmers have been devoting more land to a crop seen as hardier and more drought-tolerant in a state prone to dramatic swings in precipitation. The crop generated nearly $3 billion last year in California and in the past decade the United States has surpassed Iran to become the world\'s top exporter of the nut. &...

  Tehran, Iran — A militant attack near the Pakistani border with Iran left five Iranian forces dead, the state-run IRNA news agency reported Sunday. The report said the dead were ethnic Baluch members of the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard\'s volunteer Basij force and were killed in Saravan city in Sistan and Baluchistan province. Saravan is some 1,400 km (870 miles) southeast of the capital Tehran. No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack. Earlier in the day, state TV reported that Revolutionary Guard forces killed three terrorists and arrested nine others in a military operation. The report did not specify which group the suspects belonged to. Last month, unknown gunmen killed four people, including the chief of the R...

  FILE - A woman stands beside laundry in a flooded village after Typhoon Yinxing, locally called Marce, blew past Buguey town, Cagayan province, northern Philippines, Nov. 8, 2024. Manila — The residents of 2,500 villages were ordered to evacuate their homes as severe tropical storm Toraji approached the northern Philippines, the government said Sunday, after three massive cyclones battered the country in less than a month. Nearly 700,000 people are still sheltering at evacuation centers or with relatives after their homes were destroyed by tropical cyclones Trami, Kong-rey and Yinxing, according to government figures given to AFP. The previous trio of storms killed 159 people and with Toraji due to make landfall on Monday, people living...

  FILE - Police officers gather in a street near the Eiffel Tower on the eve of the Paralympic Games opening ceremony, Aug. 27, 2024 in Paris. Paris — Paris police said Sunday that 4,000 officers and 1,600 stadium staff will be deployed for a France-Israel soccer match to ensure security in and around the stadium and on public transportation a week after violence against Israeli fans in Amsterdam. France and Israel are playing in a UEFA Nations League match Thursday. “There\'s a context, tensions that make that match a high-risk event for us,” Paris police chief Laurent Nuñez said on French news broadcaster BFM TV, adding authorities “won\'t tolerate” any violence. Nuñez said that 2,500 police officers would be deployed around the Stad...

  Pro-Palestinian protesters face Dutch police while taking part in a banned demonstration in Amsterdam, Nov. 10, 2024. THE HAGUE, Netherlands — Police detained several people Sunday for taking part in a demonstration in central Amsterdam that had been outlawed following violence targeting fans of an Israeli soccer club, a local broadcaster reported. Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema banned all demonstrations over the weekend in the aftermath of the grim scenes of youths on scooters and on foot attacking Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters on Thursday and Friday in what was widely condemned as a violent outburst of antisemitism in the Dutch capital. Israel\'s ambassador to the Netherlands said that 2,000 Israelis were brought home on special fligh...