BERLIN (AP) — A Syrian man who came to Germany as an asylum-seeker in 2015 and was running for a seat in parliament in his new country's September election said Tuesday that he is withdrawing his candidacy. Tareq Alaows, who joined the opposition Green party last year and was running as its ...

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — South Africa will restrict the sale of alcohol and limit the size of religious and social gatherings over Easter to prevent the holiday from contributing to a new surge of COVID-19, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced Tuesday. "Given the role of alcohol in fuelling ...

ISMAILIA, Egypt (AP) — Egypt's president said Tuesday his country's share of the Nile River's waters are "untouchable" in a stark warning apparently to Ethiopia, which is building a giant dam on the Nile's main tributary. The comment from President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi comes amid a deadlock ...

TOKYO (AP) — Japan's famous cherry blossoms have reached their flowery peak in many places earlier this year than at any time since formal records started being kept nearly 70 years ago, with experts saying climate change is the likely cause. Japan's favorite flower, called "sakura," used to ...

BERLIN (AP) — Automakers BMW and Volvo announced Wednesday that they support a moratorium on deep seabed mining for minerals used in electric vehicle batteries and other products. The call, which was also backed by Samsung's EV battery unit and tech giant Google, cites the importance of ...

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) — Kachin guerrillas attacked a police outpost in northern Myanmar early Wednesday, local media reported, in an indication of the deepening involvement of ethnic minority armed forces in the country's popular movement seeking to unseat the junta that seized power in ...

PARIS (AP) — French President Emmanuel Macron scheduled a televised address to the nation for Wednesday night, a possible harbinger of tighter restrictions to combat surging coronavirus hospitalizations. Previous nationwide lockdowns in March and October of 2020 were announced by Macron in ...

BERLIN (AP) — German prosecutors said Wednesday that they have dropped an investigation of a 95-year-old former Nazi concentration camp guard after he declined to be questioned following his deportation from the United States. Friedrich Karl Berger arrived in his native Germany in February ...

BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union is referring Poland to Europe's top court over long-standing concerns about respect for the rule of law and the independence of the country's Supreme Court judges, EU officials said Wednesday. The bloc's executive commission said it will ask the European ...

BEIJING (AP) — China's loans to poor countries in Africa and Asia impose unusual secrecy and repayment terms that are hurting their ability to renegotiate debts after the pandemic, a group of U.S. and German researchers said in a report Wednesday. It adds to warnings about problems from ...

LONDON (AP) — Official figures show that the British economy ended 2020 on a stronger footing than previously thought but that it suffered a bigger than anticipated fall in output in the immediate aftermath of the first coronavirus lockdown. In its latest revisions for 2020 data, the Office ...

CAIRO (AP) — Experts dived under a colossal container ship that had been stuck for nearly a week in the Suez Canal before it was freed, to examine the vessel's underside, officials said Wednesday. The dives were part of a continuing investigation into what caused the grounding of the Ever ...

GENEVA (AP) — An international team behind a long-awaited study of the possible origins of COVID-19 with Chinese colleagues on Tuesday called it a "first start," while the United States and allies expressed concerns about the findings and China trumpeted its cooperation. Team leader Peter ...

CORINTO, Honduras (AP) — A few hundred Honduran migrants set out for the Guatemalan border before dawn Tuesday in hopes of eventually reaching the United States, but by afternoon they had largely dispersed. Other recent caravans have been broken up by Guatemalan authorities and this ...

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — The leaders of all three branches of Brazil's armed forces jointly resigned Tuesday following President Jair Bolsonaro's replacement of the defense minister, causing widespread apprehension of a military shakeup to serve the president's political interests. The Defense ...

LONDON (AP) — The cobblestones are deserted at the Tower of London. A biting wind blows and there is no sign of life. Even the storied ravens are nowhere to be seen. England's top paid attraction, which normally draws more than 3 million visitors a year, has been closed for all but a dozen ...

NEW DELHI (AP) — The scavengers wait patiently for a dump truck to tip the trash on the summit of the landfill outside New Delhi. Armed with plastic bags, they plunge their bare hands into the garbage and start sorting it. Every day, more than 2,300 tons of garbage is dumped at the landfill ...

TOKYO (AP) — The Tokyo Olympics open in under four months, and the torch relay has begun to crisscross Japan with 10,000 runners. Organizers say they are mitigating the risks, but some medical experts aren't convinced. "It is best to not hold the Olympics given the considerable risks," Dr. ...

LONDON (AP) — More than 20 heads of government and global agencies called in a commentary published Tuesday for an international treaty for pandemic preparedness that they say will protect future generations in the wake of COVID-19. But there were few details to explain how such an agreement ...

MAE SAM LAEP, Thailand (AP) — Thailand's prime minister denied Tuesday that his country's security forces forced villagers back to Myanmar who had fled from military airstrikes, saying they returned home on their own accord. Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, nevertheless, said his country is ...