WORLD

U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper expressed concerns about Beijing's "destabilizing" activity near Taiwan and the South China Sea in a call with Chinese Defense Minister Wei Fenghe, the Pentagon said on Thursday, the first time the two are believed to have spoken since March.

French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday promised aid to Lebanon but reassured angry citizens reeling from a blast that killed 145 people that no blank cheques will be given to its leaders unless they enact reforms and end rife corruption.

A gunman who took six people hostage in a bank in northern France on Thursday surrendered to elite police after a six-hour operation to free his captives.

The United States is negotiating the sale of at least four of its large sophisticated aerial drones to Taiwan for the first time, according to six U.S. sources familiar with the negotiations, in a deal that is likely to ratchet up tensions with China.

Hundreds of migrant children rapidly expelled from the United States under a coronavirus immigration policy are returning to shelters in Guatemala where virus testing and bed capacity are regularly stretched to their limits.

When he first felt the ground shaking, Reuters photographer Mohamed Azakir thought Beirut had been struck by an earthquake.

Mourners at a Mexico City cemetery on Thursday lamented a lack of stricter measures to control the novel coronavirus which allowed it to spread fast and claim more than 50,000 lives in their country.

Britain announced a 200 million pound ($260 million) scheme to help smooth post-Brexit trade disruption for businesses in Northern Ireland when European Union freedom of movement rules cease to apply at the end of the year.

Brazil's Defense Ministry on Thursday suspended operations by environmental agents against illegal miners on an indigenous reservation in the Amazon, saying it was acting at the request of Munduruku tribe members who wanted mining on their land.