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An Afghan midwife prepares a report in the nursery section at a private hospital in Kabul on Dec. 10.  The Taliban's supreme leader is reportedly behind a ban on women studying midwifery and nursing at training institutes across the country, already among the worst in the world for deaths in childbirth.
WORLD / Society
Dec 16, 2024

Afghan student nurses crushed as Taliban block last hopes of a job

Since seizing power in 2021, the Taliban have barred women from university and most jobs, and imposed tight restrictions on their lives.
Ko Sung-kook, a conservative commentator who hosts Kosungkook TV on YouTube, meets his fans during a rally to support President Yoon Suk Yeol in Seoul on Saturday.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Dec 16, 2024

Inside South Korea's right-wing YouTube world openly embraced by Yoon

The impeached president's claims of "anti-state" pro-North Korean sympathizers as justification for martial law is a familiar theme on right-wing channels.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz gestures as he addresses the lower house of parliament in Berlin on Monday.
WORLD / Politics
Dec 17, 2024

Germany's Scholz loses confidence vote, triggering early elections

Berlin's troubles come as Germany's main European Union partner France is also mired in a government crisis.
A man rides a motorbike along a street in the settlement of Hulbuk, formerly known as Vose, in the Khatlon region, Tajikistan, on Dec. 12.
WORLD / Politics
Dec 17, 2024

Tajik migrants fear for income and security as Russia reels from terror attack

Migrants in Russia say a rise in street harassment and police raids are making life there more difficult, a concern also raised by rights advocates.
A Ukrainian tank crew member stands on a tank near Pokrovsk, in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region, on Friday.
WORLD
Dec 18, 2024

Ukraine has inflicted casualties on North Korean forces, U.S. says

The officials did not provide specific numbers on missing, dead and wounded or if some of the wounded could go back into action.
Rep. Michael Waltz, a Republican from Florida, speaks with former President Donald Trump while attending the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines in August 2023.
WORLD / Politics
Dec 18, 2024

For Waltz, advising isolationist Trump is a Taiwan-sized challenge

Florida congressman Mike Waltz has built his reputation in Washington as a China hawk, working on a House task force to coordinate policy toward Beijing.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau during the National Caucus holiday party in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, on Tuesday
WORLD / Politics
Dec 19, 2024

Trudeau’s political crisis rips up playbook for trade fight with Trump

Canada's prime minister is now on the back foot after his finance minister resigned, a move that cast doubt on his preparation for a clash with the U.S.
A pedestrian shares the sidewalk with a food delivery robot in Los Angeles.
COMMENTARY / World / The Year Ahead
Dec 31, 2024

The world needs a pro-human AI agenda

It is both technically feasible and socially desirable to have AI that complements workers, improves our information ecosystem, and strengthens democracy.
U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson speaks to reporters following the passage of spending legislation to avert a government shutdown, on Capitol Hill in Washington on Friday.
WORLD / Politics
Dec 21, 2024

U.S. Congress passes bill to avert shutdown

After weeks of tense negotiations that went down to the wire, U.S. lawmakers passed a bill to fund federal agencies through mid-March.
U.S. President Joe Biden departs from St. Joseph on the Brandywine Catholic Church, on the day of the anniversary of the death of the president's first wife and daughter in a car accident in 1972, in Wilmington, Delaware, on Wednesday.
WORLD / Politics / FOCUS
Dec 21, 2024

Fade out: Biden disappears into background

Despite still occupying the world's most powerful pulpit, Biden has remained virtually absent from the public debate about his noisy successor.
Oleksandr Usyk celebrates after beating Tyson Fury to retain his world heavyweight titles, on Saturday in Riyadh.
MORE SPORTS / Boxing
Dec 22, 2024

Ukraine's Usyk outpoints Fury to retain world heavyweight crowns

Giving up advantages in height, weight and reach to his much bigger opponent, Usyk fought superbly throughout.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer attends a bilateral meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit in Rio de Janeiro on Nov. 18.
WORLD / Politics / FOCUS
Dec 22, 2024

Starmer is deepening China ties while the U.K.’s allies turn away

Starmer’s pursuit of closer ties with China has raised private questions from Trump’s incoming administration, European diplomats and even some senior British officials.
Syrians step on posters of Bashar Assad and his father, Hafez Assad, in Homs, Syria, on Tuesday.
WORLD / Politics / FOCUS
Dec 22, 2024

How Bashar Assad's inner circle fled Syria after his fall

The ousted president was accompanied by only a handful of confidants, leaving both family members and loyal aides to find their own means of escape.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks at a ceremony for military combat officers at an army base near Mitzpe Ramon, Israel, on Oct. 31.
WORLD / Politics
Dec 23, 2024

Israel's Netanyahu eyes Iran after triumphs over Hamas, Hezbollah and Syria

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has had a succession of monumental wins that include the top leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah being eliminated.
Singapore's Maersk Taurus container ship transits the expanded canal through Cocoli Locks at the Panama Canal, on the outskirts of Panama City, Panama on Aug. 12.
WORLD / Politics
Dec 24, 2024

Trump previews combative foreign policy with threats to Panama and Greenland

Defenders of Donald Trump's approach say he is merely a forceful advocate of "America First" policies.
A Wizzair Airbus A320-200 plane lands in Riga International Airport, Latvia, in 2019.
WORLD
Dec 24, 2024

European airline pilots and crews voice concerns about Middle East routes

The safety debate about flying over the Middle East is playing out in Europe largely because pilots there are protected by unions, unlike other parts of the world.
Supporters of the French far-right National Rally party wave French flags on Dec. 15. In Europe this year, the far right made gains in several legislatures, including that of France.
WORLD / Politics
Dec 24, 2024

Democracy heads into 2025 bloodied but unbowed

Overall, there were no attempts this year to prevent a peaceful transfer of power, but autocracies grew more repressive.
Rescuers work at a site of a residential building heavily damaged by a Russian missile strike in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, in October 2022.
WORLD
Dec 24, 2024

How one man became a Ukrainian traitor and Russian spy

Before the full-scale invasion, Ukrainian nationals were mainly recruited during trips to Russia, but approaches are more often made online now using social networks.
Smoke rises following an Israeli strike near the Indonesian Hospital that ran out of fuel and electricity, in the northern Gaza Strip, on Nov. 12, 2023.
WORLD
Dec 25, 2024

Israeli army forces patients out of north Gaza hospital, medics say

Israel says its operation around the three northern Gaza communities surrounding the hospital is targeting Hamas militants.
Palestinians gather at a charity kitchen in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, on Dec. 4.
WORLD
Dec 25, 2024

Looting cripples Gaza food supply despite Israeli pledge to tackle gangs

Israel has failed to crack down on armed gangs attacking food convoys in Gaza, despite a pledge to do so in mid-October to help ward off famine in the Palestinian enclave, according to three U.N. and U.S. officials familiar with the matter. The commitment, made behind closed doors, seemed like a breakthrough...
Aryna Sabalenka celebrates with the trophy after winning Australian Open in Melbourne on Jan. 27.
TENNIS
Dec 26, 2024

World No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka hungry for more success in 2025

Despite her rise through the ranks to become the player to beat heading into 2025, Sabalenka said there were still parts of her game that need work.
Smoke rises after Israeli strikes near Sanaa airport, in Sanaa, Yemen, on Thursday.
WORLD / Politics
Dec 27, 2024

Israel hits Houthis in Yemen in response to slow escalation

Among targets hit Thursday included military infrastructure at the Sanaa International Airport and in the Hezyaz and Ras Kanatib power stations.
Protesters hold a banner depicting South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol's face on a cartoon train, as they take part in a rally calling for his impeachment. Ten days earlier, Yoon shocked the world by declaring martial law, a decision that was reversed hours later.
WORLD / 2024 in Review
Dec 27, 2024

World news images of 2024: A year of power plays and shifting tides

From a surprise martial law declaration in South Korea to the toppling of a tyrant in Syria, here is a look back on the year's international news.
World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus speaks during a news conference in Kigali, Rwanda, in October.
WORLD
Dec 28, 2024

WHO chief says he narrowly escaped death in Israeli strikes on Yemen airport

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told BBC radio his ears were still ringing following Thursday's attack.
Elon Musk walks through Capitol Hill on the day of a meeting with Senate Republican Leader-elect John Thune in Washington on Dec. 5.
WORLD / Politics
Dec 29, 2024

Trump sides with Musk in rightwing row over worker visas

Trump's calls to slash immigration were central to his election victory but Big Tech says the U.S. produces too few highly skilled graduates.
A drone view shows smoke above Beit Hanoun in the Gaza Strip, as seen from near Kibbutz Nir Am in southern Israel on Dec. 12.
WORLD
Dec 30, 2024

Israeli forces order evacuation of northern Gaza town, residents say

Palestinian and United Nations officials say no place is safe in Gaza and that evacuations worsen the humanitarian conditions of the population.
Russian President Vladimir Putin shakes hands with Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico during a meeting in Moscow on Dec. 22.
WORLD / Politics
Dec 30, 2024

Ukraine-Russia gas transit deal faces critical moment of truth

As its year-end expiry looms, Slovakia and a group of central European companies are putting pressure on Ukraine to keep Russian gas flowing.
Former President Jimmy Carter, furthest right, in a group photo with his successors at the White House in 2009. From his re-election defeat in 1980 until his death on Sunday, he was the odd man out, distant from the Republicans and Democrats who followed him.
WORLD
Dec 30, 2024

In the presidents’ club, Carter was the odd man out

Jimmy Carter’s relationship with his successors in the Oval Office, both Republicans and fellow Democrats, was generally tense because of his outspokenness.
A satellite image shows the Sverdlov plant in Dzerzhinsk, Russia, on Sept. 13, 2022.
WORLD / Politics
Dec 31, 2024

The Russian billionaires whose chemical factories fuel Moscow's war machine

The analysis demonstrates how heavily plants forming part of Russia's war machine rely on the chemical factories.
Syria's new leader and Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) chief Ahmed Sharaa (right) receives Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha in Damascus on Monday.
WORLD / Politics
Dec 31, 2024

Syria eyes 'strategic' ties with Ukraine amid waning Russian influence

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he hoped providing help to Syria would be beneficial to restoring stability in Ukraine.

Longform

Tetsuzo Shiraishi, speaking at The Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage, uses a thermos to explain how he experienced the U.S. firebombing of March 1945, when he was just 7 years old.
From ashes to high-rises: A survivor’s account of Tokyo’s postwar past