World

MOSCOW, (Reuters) – Russia’s central bank offered yesterday to help leading exporters refinance foreign debts next year, expected to be one of the toughest of President Vladimir Putin’s 15-year rule for the economy due to Western sanctions and a plunge in oil prices.

(Reuters) – A white policeman shot dead a black man brandishing a gun at a suburban St.

LOS ANGELES, (Reuters) – “The Interview,” the provocative comedy that triggered a devastating cyberattack on Sony Pictures, went straight to U.S.

VATICAN CITY, (Reuters) – Pope Francis ushered the world’s 1.2 billion Roman Catholics into Christmas yesterday, urging them to allow God to enter their lives to help combat darkness and corruption.

(Reuters) – An 18-year-old black man was shot and killed by police at a gas station late on Tuesday in a St.

KABUL, (Reuters) – Afghanistan has new roads, sections of which many deem too dangerous to use.

NEW YORK, (Reuters) – U.S. stocks rose yesterday, with the Dow closing above 18,000 for the first time ever and the S&P 500 ending at a record after an unexpectedly strong report on economic growth.

UNITED NATIONS, (Reuters) – The United Nations informed the Security Council yesterday that rival factions in Libya have agreed “in principle” to hold a new round of peace talks aimed at ending the escalating political crisis early in the new year.

(Reuters) – U.S. health regulators will recommend that gay men be allowed to donate blood one year after their last sexual contact, easing a ban that has been in place since 1983.

ATLANTA, (Reuters) – A Delta Air Lines baggage handler has been charged with helping another man smuggle 18 handguns onto a flight from Atlanta to New York City, in a scheme that prosecutors said ran for years and also involved assault weapons.

LOS ANGELES/WASHINGTON, (Reuters) – Sony Pictures will allow “The Interview” to play in more than 200 U.S.

DAR ES SALAAM, (Reuters) – Tanzanian President Jakaya Kiwete’s office suspended a senior energy ministry official on Tuesday, the third political casualty of a corruption scandal that has rocked the east African nation.

WASHINGTON/BEIJING (Reuters) – North Korea, at the centre of a confrontation with the United States over the hacking of Sony pictures, itself experienced Internet outages yesterday, a US company that monitors Internet infrastructure said.

MANAGUA (Reuters) – Nicaragua yesterday announced the start of work on a $50 billion shipping canal, an infrastructure project backed by China that aims to rival Panama’s waterway and revitalize the economy of the second-poorest country in the Americas.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – US civil rights groups yesterday called on the US Justice Department to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the CIA’s use of torture and other extreme measures during interrogations.

TUNIS (Reuters) – Veteran Tunisian politician Beji Caid Essebsi won the country’s first free presidential election in the final step of a transition to democracy after an uprising that ousted autocrat Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali in 2011.

MADRID, (Reuters) – Cristina de Borbon, sister of Spain’s King Felipe VI, will stand trial on charges of tax fraud, the first Spanish royal to face prosecution in court.

NEW YORK, (Reuters) – New York Mayor Bill de Blasio faced the biggest crisis of his political career yesterday after a gunman killed two police officers in an attack intended to avenge recent police killings of unarmed black men in the United States.

WASHINGTON, (Reuters) – U.S. President Barack Obama moved to prevent U.S.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, (Reuters) – Haitian Health Minister Florence Duperval Guillaume was named interim prime minister yesterday to replace Laurent Lamothe, who resigned a week ago following several weeks of protests.