AP National News

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi is meeting with Greek officials during a visit to Athens that’s expected to focus on furthering Chinese investments in Greece. Greece recently emerged from a decade-long financial crisis that wiped out a quarter of its economy and has been eager to attract international investments. China is

By SAMY MAGDY Associated Press CAIRO (AP) — Relatives and activists say Sudanese security forces have detained three prominent pro-democracy figures overnight. The arrests come as internal and international pressure mounts on the country’s military following its coup and protests denouncing the takeover continued Wednesday. Many businesses have shut in response to calls for strikes.

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — Unidentified gunmen attacked a police patrol overnight in northwest Pakistan, killing four before fleeing the scene, a police official said. No group claimed responsibility for the attack in Lakki Marwat, a town in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering Afghanistan. Police provided no further details. Pakistan has witnessed scores of such terrorist

By KIRSTEN GRIESHABER Associated Press BERLIN (AP) — The German parliament will not extend the “epidemic situation of national scope” when it expires next month, but will keep in place certain measures to check the spread of the coronavirus. Leading members of the country’s parliament, or Bundestag, said on Wednesday that although coronavirus infections have

FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — Deutsche Bank has seen its net profit increase 6%, to 329 million euros, in the third quarter despite a sharp increase in restructuring costs. The bottom line at Germany’s largest bank benefited from fewer loans going bad as the economy rebounds from the coronavirus pandemic. The bank said Wednesday that it

By BARRY HATTON Associated Press LISBON, Portugal (AP) — Portugal’s parliament is poised to reject the minority Socialist government’s proposed state budget for 2022. That will likely trigger a snap election and put a brake on the country’s post-pandemic recovery plans. The moderate Socialists have been deserted by hard-left allies from the Communist Party and

By SAMY MAGDY Associated Press CAIRO (AP) — The United Nations Security Council and the United States have imposed sanctions on a Libyan official over the alleged abuse and torture of migrants in a detention center. The Security Council and the U.S. said in separate statements late Tuesday that Osama al-Kuni is the de facto

By LISA MASCARO, AAMER MADHANI and ALAN FRAM Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Democrats are unveiling a new billionaires’ tax proposal to help pay for President Joe Biden’s sweeping domestic policy package. The tax proposed Wednesday would be on the gains of those with more than $1 billion in assets or incomes of more

By JON GAMBRELL and NASSER KARIMI Associated Press DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran’s president is saying that a cyberattack that shut down gas stations across the nation aimed to get “people angry by creating disorder and disruption.” Ebrahim Raisi’s comments, the first since Tuesday’s attack, did not blame anyone specifically for the incident.

BEIJING (AP) — China says participants in next year’s Winter Olympics will be strictly isolated from the general population and could face expulsion for violating COVID-19 restrictions. Beijing 2022 organizing committee official Zhang Jiandong says those taking part in the Winter Games beginning Feb. 4 must remain in a “closed loop” for accommodation, training, competing,

ISLAMABAD (AP) — Pakistan says that Saudi Arabia will deposit $3 billion into its central bank to help bolster the cash-strapped fellow Islamic nation’s shrinking foreign reserves. Shaukat Tarin, Pakistan’s top finance ministry official, also said on Twitter Wednesday that Saudi Arabia will additionally supply 1.2 billion worth of oil to Pakistan on credit. The

By HASSAN BARISE Associated Press MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) — Among the once-taboo professions emerging from Somalia’s decades of conflict and Islamic extremism is the world of arts, and a 21-year-old female painter has faced more opposition than most. A rare woman artist in the highly conservative Horn of Africa nation, Sana Ashraf Sharif Muhsin lives

BRUSSELS (AP) — A study commissioned by the environmental group Greenpeace shows that over one-third of the busiest short-haul flights in Europe have viable train alternatives which are far less polluting. The group called on European governments Wednesday to boost train travel so fewer polluting planes are flying over the continent. The study by OBC

By NICOLE WINFIELD Associated Press ROME (AP) — A Group of 20 summit scheduled for this weekend in Rome is the first in-person gathering of leaders of the world’s biggest economies since the COVID-19 pandemic started. But the event isn’t business as usual. The leaders of Russia and China aren’t attending in person. There could

By ASHOK SHARMA Associated Press NEW DELHI (AP) — India’s top court has established a committee of experts to probe accusations that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government used Israeli military-grade spyware to monitor political opponents, journalists and activists. The Supreme Court order came in response to petitions filed by a group of Indian journalists, rights

By SAMY MAGDY Associated Press CAIRO (AP) — Sudanese activists say security forces have detained three prominent pro-democracy activists. The arrests have come hours after the military allowed deposed Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok and his wife to return home. International pressure is mounting on the generals, after they seized power in a coup Monday, some

By YURI KAGEYAMA Associated Press TOKYO (AP) — Sunao Tsuboi, a survivor of the Hiroshima atomic bombing who made opposing nuclear weapons the message of his life, including in a meeting with President Barack Obama in 2016, has died. He was 96. Tsuboi died Oct. 24 in a hospital in Hiroshima in southwestern Japan. When

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — A cyberattack in Iran affected all of the Islamic Republic’s 4,300 gas stations. That’s according to a senior official, who made the comment as some still faced problems Wednesday. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack that began Tuesday. However, it bore similarities to another months earlier that

BERLIN (AP) — The United Nations is summoning an unusual “witness” to testify to the dangers of burning fossil fuels that stoke global warming. In a video released on social media ahead of this year’s U.N. climate change summit, a computer-generated dinosaur bursts into the U.N.’s famous General Assembly hall in New York to tell