WORLD

China positioned five ships around the Jackson atoll in the South China Sea about a month ago, barring Philippine fishermen from entering, a local official said.

The rating agency cited increasing government debt, lower foreign exchange reserves and uncertainty about reforms as reasons.

Tensions between the two Koreas have escalated since North Korea’s nuclear test in January and its long-range rocket launch earlier last month.

Malaysian leader Najib Razak has pledged to fight extremism in Southeast Asia, vowing to remain as Saudi Arabia’s “inseparable” partner against terror groups.

Gen. Philip Breedlove, the top U.S. commander in Europe, said terrorists are sneaking into Europe because of Russia, but experts disagree.

China’s leadership will spend nearly $23 billion to cover layoffs in just the coal and steel sectors in the coming years, according to a report from Reuters.

The expanded sanctions would require inspections of all cargo going to and from North Korea and blacklisting North Koreans active in Syria, Iran and Vietnam.

The recent landslide win by moderates in Tehran may help President Hassan Rouhani open up Iran to the West and change strategy in war-torn Syria.

Refugees in Calais protested by lighting fire to their tents and pelting police with stones in protest of the camp’s partial destruction, according to reports.

Documents seized by the U.S. during the raid that killed Osama bin Laden reveal a leader interested in technology and worried about spies.

Forensic evidence indicates the Cambridge University student was burned over several days with cigarettes.

US Special Forces have commenced operations against the terror group's final stronghold in Mosul, northern Iraq.

In an interview with German television, Syrian President Bashar Assad promised full amnesty to opposition fighters who lay down their arms.

Four Kenyan police officers were arrested in a government-owned vehicle while trying to sell 11 pounds of ivory valued at $5,500.

The number of refugees crossing into Europe through the Mediterranean this year have already exceeded that in the first half of 2015, the U.N. refugee agency said Tuesday.

The latest pact, covering shipping and fisheries, comes almost 20 years after the two countries unsuccessfully tried to implement a similar pact in 1998.

The number of jobless people in the 19-nation bloc continued to drop in January, as robust German growth offset high unemployment in Spain and Greece.

From Simone de Beauvoir to Laverne Cox, women have fought for equality for all.

A court in southern China’s Guangdong convicted 24 members of a group conning over 230,000 people, mostly elderly, from 2002 to 2012.

The syndrome, which is usually triggered by an infection, is a severe neurological disorder that can cause temporary paralysis.

The aging population in Europe’s biggest economy, which saw the arrival of 1 million refugees in 2015, has led to a chronic manpower shortage.

The ruling junta stuck to a constitutional provision barring Myanmar’s National League for Democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi from being the president, reports said.

The Wall Street Journal reported Monday that the deposits made from 2011 to 2013 were far more than the $681 million identified earlier.

Amid speculation that the pilot hijacked the plane to protest the conviction of Anwar Ibrahim, a distant relative, Ibrahim’s daughter called the link between the two men coincidental.

The meeting, scheduled to take place Tuesday, comes at a time when Russia’s oil-dependent economy is reeling under recession.

The U.S. Department of State asked citizens to exercise caution while traveling throughout Turkey citing terror attacks and increased cross-border shelling from Syria.

Lee Bo appeared on Chinese television late Monday for the first time since his disappearance, saying he sneaked into China illegally.

Prosecutors suspect favors were extended to former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva by executives of engineering firms Odebrecht and OAS.

Singapore, which does not claim any part of the South China Sea, will speak for claimants like the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei.