DEC 30, 2019 1600 GMT | FILE – In this Dec. 25, 2019, file photo, an Army carry team moves a transfer case containing the remains of U.S. Army Sgt. 1st Class Michael Goble, at Dover Air Force Base, Del.. Goble, a U.S. Special Forces soldier who died in Afghanistan this week, was seizing a Taliban weapons cache when he was killed, the U.S. military said Friday. (AP File Photo)
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — The Taliban’s ruling council agreed Sunday to a temporary cease-fire in Afghanistan, providing a window in which a peace agreement with the United States can be signed, officials from the insurgent group said. They didn’t say when it would begin.
A cease-fire had been demanded by Washington before any peace agreement could be signed. A peace deal would allow the U.S. to bring home its troops from Afghanistan and end its 18-year military engagement there, America’s longest.
DEC 27, 2019 1800 GMT |Seoul, South Korea | A currency trader stretches at the foreign exchange dealing room of the KEB Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, Dec. 27, 2019. Asian stocks followed Wall Street higher on Friday amid optimism U.S.-Chinese trade relations are improving. (AP Photo)
BEIJING (AP) — Global stock markets moved mostly higher on Friday amid optimism that U.S.-Chinese trade relations are improving and on early reports that online Christmas shopping was up over last year in the U.S.
European markets rose in midday trading and Wall Street was primed for more gains after reaching new highs yet again on Thursday. Hong Kong finished with gains and Tokyo declined.
Investors welcomed U.S. President Donald Trump’s comment that an interim “Phase 1” trade deal with China was “getting done.” Trump said he and Chinese President Xi Jinping would hold a signing ceremony.
DEC 25, 2019 1900 GMT | Mar-a-Lago, Palm Beach Florida, USA |US President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump talk at Mar-a-lago while there for Christmas Eve dinner in Palm Beach, Florida., Tuesday, Dec. 24, 2019. (AP Photo)
PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump attended a music-filled Christmas Eve service at a Southern Baptist Convention-affiliated church before celebrating the holiday with dinner in the ballroom of his private club.
The pastor of Family Church in West Palm Beach, Florida, Jimmy Scroggins, and his family greeted the Trumps as they arrived moments into a “Candlelight Christmas Celebration.” The Trumps received applause and cheers while taking reserved seats in the church’s third pew. Brief sermons and readings by clergy were interlaced between traditional Christmas songs, as theatrical smoke billowed and fake snow descended from the rafters.
DEC 24, 2019 1700 GMT | FILE – This photo provided by the French Defense Ministry communication center and taken Tuesday Dec. 17, 2019, shows French soldiers loading a French Reaper drone with two GBU 12 missiles on Niamey airbase, Niger. France’s defense ministry said Monday that it had carried out its first armed drone strike, killing seven Islamic extremists in central Mali over the weekend. France joins a tiny group of countries that use armed drones, including the United States. (AP Photo)
PARIS (AP) — France’s defense ministry announced Monday it had carried out its first armed drone strike, killing seven Islamic extremists in central Mali over the weekend.
France joins a tiny group of countries that use armed drones, including the United States.
The drone deployment came nearly one month after two French helicopters collided in Mali, killing 13 soldiers in the deadliest military loss for France in nearly four decades.
A defense ministry statement said the drone strike took place Saturday while French President Emmanuel Macron was visiting neighboring Ivory Coast, where France has a military base. Macron already had announced that French forces had killed 33 extremists that day.
DEC 20, 2019 1900 GMT | New Delhi India | Indians gather for a protest against the Citizenship Amendment Act after Friday Prayers outside Jama Masjid in New Delhi, India, Friday, Dec. 20, 2019. Police banned public gatherings in parts of the Indian capital and other cities for a third day Friday and cut internet services to try to stop growing protests against a new citizenship law that have so far left eight people dead and more than 1,200 others detained. (AP Photo)
NEW DELHI (AP) — Police banned public gatherings in parts of the Indian capital and other cities for a third day Friday and cut internet services to try to stop growing protests against a new citizenship law that have left 11 people dead and more than 4,000 others detained.
Thousands of protesters stood inside and on the steps of New Delhi’s Jama Masijd, one of India’s largest mosques, after Friday afternoon prayers, waving Indian flags and shouting slogans against the government and the citizenship law, which critics say threatens India’s secular democracy in favor of a Hindu state.
DEC 16, 2019 1700 GMT | Paris, France | Commuters walk to get on a train at the Gare Saint Lazare station in Paris, France, Monday, Dec. 16, 2019. French transport strikes against a planned overhaul of the pension system entered their twelfth day Monday as French president Emmanuel Macron’s government remains determined to push ahead with its plans. (AP Photo)
PARIS (AP) — French President Emmanuel Macron’s government suffered a major blow Monday when the key architect of the pension overhaul resigned over alleged conflicts of interests, on the 12th day of transport strikes against the planned changes.
The announcement came at a crucial time: just before a new round of protests planned Tuesday across France and as the government was preparing for last-minute talks with workers’ unions ahead of the Christmas season.
DEC 12, 2019 2100 GMT | London, England, Great Britain | The results of an exit poll are projected onto the outside of Broadcasting House in London, just after voting closed for the 2019 General Election, Thursday, Dec. 12, 2019. An exit poll in Britain’s election projects that Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party likely will win a majority of seats in Parliament. That outcome would allow Johnson to fulfill his plan to take the U.K. out of the European Union next month. (AP Photo)
LONDON (AP) — Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party has won a thumping majority of seats in Britain’s Parliament — a decisive outcome to a Brexit-dominated election that should allow Johnson to fulfill his plan to take the U.K. out of the European Union next month.
With 642 of the 650 results declared on Friday, the Conservatives had 358 seats and t he main opposition Labour Party 203.
DEC 11, 2019 1500 GMT | COP25 Madrid, Spain | Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg listens to speeches before addressing a plenary of U.N. climate conference at the COP25 summit in Madrid, Spain, Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2019. Thunberg is in Madrid where a global U.N.-sponsored climate change conference is taking place. (AP Photo)
MADRID (AP) — Teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg said she was surprised and honored Wednesday to be named Time’s youngest Person of the Year, while adding that others in the global movement she helped inspire deserve to share the accolade.
The 16-year-old Swede has become the face of a new generation of environmental activists, drawing large crowds with her appearances at protests and conferences over the past year and a half. Some have welcomed her work, including her speeches challenging world leaders to do more to stop global warming. But others have criticized her sometimes combative tone.
DEC 6, 2019 1900 GMT | Maidstone, England (Great Britain) | Opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, left, and Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson, during a head to head live Election Debate at the BBC TV studios in Maidstone, England, Friday Dec. 6, 2019. Britain’s Brexit is one of the main issues for political parties and for voters, as the UK prepares for a General Election on Dec. 12. The debate is moderated by TV presenter Nick Robinson, right. (AP Photo)
LONDON (AP) — British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn clashed Friday night in the last head-to-head debate before a general election in six days — an underpowered showdown that saw both men stick to well-worn phrases and promises about their plans for Brexit and Britain’s future.
Johnson, a Conservative who supports Britain’s exit from the European Union, tried to portray Corbyn as a waffler with no firm Brexit stance who would plunge the U.K. into more uncertainty. Corbyn reminded viewers about the Conservative government’s spending cuts, and claimed Johnson was bent on striking a trade deal with the United States that might harm Britain’s interests.
DEC 4, 2019 1400 GMT | Jalalabad, Eastern Afghanistan | FILE -In this, Aug 28, 2008, photo, Tetsu Nakamura, center right, executive director of PMS Japan, with others, stands near the dead body of Japanese aid worker Kazuya Ito at the governor house of Jalalabad, east of Kabul, Afghanistan. The Japanese physician and aid worker in eastern Afghanistan died of his wounds after an attack Wednesday, Dec. 4, 2019, that also killed five Afghans, including the doctor’s bodyguards, the driver and a passenger, a hospital spokesman said. (AP Photo)
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — A shooting ambush in eastern Afghanistan on Wednesday killed a Japanese physician and aid worker widely respected and beloved in the war-scarred nation, triggering an outpouring of grief among the people whose lives he helped change for the better.
The leaders of Japan and Afghanistan expressed their condemnations of the attack that took the life of Tetsu Nakamura, and also killed five Afghans, including the doctor’s bodyguards, the driver and a passenger, hospital spokesman Gulzada Sanger said.
