National-World

By Sarah Dean, CNN Johannesburg (CNN) — South Africa’s transport minister and her bodyguards were robbed at gunpoint on Monday, according to the South African Police Service (SAPS). Minister Sindisiwe Chikunga was travelling on the N3 highway between Vosloorus and Heidelberg, south of Johannesburg, on Monday when the incident took place, police said. Recounting the

By Yong Xiong, Melissa Gray and David Culver, CNN (CNN) – Three giant pandas left their enclosure at the Smithsonian National Zoo in Washington, DC, and departed by plane back to China on Wednesday, marking the end of more than 50 years of Chinese pandas being housed at the zoo. The black and white bears

By Luke McGee, CNN (CNN) — Ukraine’s ambitions of joining the European Union received an important boost on Wednesday when the bloc’s executive body said detailed negotiations should begin next year. The European Commission said in a report that so-called accession talks should finally start, nearly 18 months since the bloc accepted Ukraine as a candidate

By Abeer Salman, Eyad Kourdi, David Shortell and Lauren Kent, CNN Jerusalem (CNN) — Waving white flags and holding identification papers aloft, residents of northern Gaza were seen fleeing south during a four-hour window allotted by the Israel Defense Forces for civilians to escape Tuesday. Videos from the scene, including one published by the IDF,

By Jessie Yeung, Duarte Mendonca, Abeer Salman and Eyad Kourdi, CNN (CNN) — A UNICEF spokesperson has defended the death toll being reported out of Gaza, saying the organization’s figures had historically matched those of the Hamas-controlled Gazan health ministry. More than 10,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli airstrikes in the past month –

By Nectar Gan, CNN Hong Kong (CNN) — Unusually early heavy snowfall blanketed swathes of northeastern China this week, forcing airlines to cancel flights, halting trains and shutting schools and roads in the country’s first major blizzard of the season. The first snowfall in northeast China usually takes place between late November and early December,

By Ashley Strickland, CNN (CNN) — Two powerful NASA telescopes have detected the oldest and most distant black hole ever found. Data captured via energetic X-rays by the Chandra X-ray Observatory and James Webb Space Telescope has helped astronomers spot the signature of a growing black hole within the early universe just 470 million years

By Barbie Latza Nadeau and Christian Edwards, CNN Rome (CNN) — Italy will build two detention centers in Albania to house migrants trying to reach its shores, Prime Minister Georgia Meloni said Monday, in an attempt to control migration figures that have almost doubled in the year since she took office. Meloni said the facilities

By Adam Pourahmadi, Niamh Kennedy, Jomana Karadsheh and Rosa Rahimi, CNN (CNN) — Imprisoned Iranian Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi started a hunger strike on Monday in protest over what she said was the jail’s refusal to provide her with medical treatment, according to a family statement provided to CNN. The 51-year-old rights activist