World

NEW YORK, (Reuters) – Brazil-based construction colossus Odebrecht SA and affiliated petrochemical company Braskem SA agreed yesterday to pay at least $3.5 billion, the largest penalty ever in a foreign bribery case, to resolve international charges involving payoffs to Brazil’s state oil company and others.

(Reuters) – The U.S. government spent more than a decade preparing responses to malicious hacking by a foreign power but had no clear strategy when Russia launched a disinformation campaign over the internet during the U.S.

KINSHASA, (Reuters) – Security forces shot dead at least 26 protesters who had gathered in the streets of Kinshasa and other cities of Democratic Republic of Congo yesterday to demand that President Joseph Kabila step down after his mandate expired overnight.

MANILA, (Reuters) – The United Nations human rights commission has urged the Philippines to launch a murder investigations into President Rodrigo Duterte claims he killed three people as mayor of Davao City and all killings in his war on drugs.

NEW YORK,  (Reuters) – Top executives of New York-based hedge fund manager Platinum Partners were arrested on Monday and charged with running a $1 billion fraud that federal prosecutors said became “like a Ponzi scheme” as its largest investments lost much of their value.

WASHINGTON, (Reuters) – U.S. President Barack Obama yesterday banned new oil and gas drilling in federal waters in the Atlantic and Arctic Oceans, in a push to leave his stamp on the environment before Republican Donald Trump takes office next month.

ANKARA (Reuters) – The Russian ambassador to Turkey Andrei Karlov was shot in the back and killed as he gave a speech at an Ankara art gallery yesterday by an off-duty police officer who shouted “Don’t forget Aleppo” and “Allahu Akbar” as he opened fire.

BERLIN (Reuters) – A truck ploughed into a crowded Christmas market in central Berlin last evening, killing 12 people and injuring 48 others in what Germany’s interior minister said looked like an attack.

PARIS/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde escaped punishment and kept her job yesterday despite a conviction on negligence charges over a state payout made while she served as France’s finance minister in 2008.

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Thousands of people were evacuated from the last rebel-held enclave of Aleppo yesterday in return for insurgents allowing people to leave two besieged pro-government villages in nearby Idlib province.

BERLIN,  (Reuters) – A truck ploughed into a crowded Christmas market in central Berlin on Monday evening, killing nine people and injuring up to 50 others, police said, in what appeared to be one of the deadliest attacks in Germany in decades.

BEIRUT/AMMAN, (Reuters) – Armed men burned five buses that were supposed to be used for an evacuation near Idlib in Syria yesterday, stalling a deal to allow thousands to depart the last rebel pocket in Aleppo, where evacuees crammed into buses for hours before departing the city.

WASHINGTON,  (Reuters) – President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming White House chief of staff yesterday played down the prospect that Trump would revisit Washington’s decades-old “one China” policy, even though he suggested as much a week ago.

WASHINGTON, (Reuters) – U.S. Republican and Democratic senators called yesterday for a special bipartisan panel to investigate cyber attacks against the United States by foreign countries with a focus on Russia’s alleged efforts to influence the U.S.

(Reuters) – Actress Zsa Zsa Gabor, who parlayed beauty, diamond-studded glamour and nine marriages into a long celebrity career, died yesterday, Variety and other media outlets reported, She was 99.

(Reuters) Miss World 2016 has been named as Stephanie Del Valle from Puerto Rico.

SAN SALVADOR, (Reuters) – Three El Salvadoran priests have been found guilty of sexual abuse against minors at a Vatican ecclesiastical trial and suspended from their priestly duties, San Salvador’s Catholic Church announced yesterday.

CARACAS, (Reuters) – Security forces have arrested more than 300 people during protests and lootings over the elimination of Venezuela’s largest currency bill, President Nicolas Maduro said yesterday.

ROME, (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Countries most dependent on agriculture are also at high risk of experiencing changes in climate over the next 30 years and face the biggest costs in dealing with the effects of extreme weather, according to a global climate index published on Monday.

LOS ANGELES,  (Variety.com) – “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” sold out multiplexes around the country and brought fanboys and fangirls out in force over the weekend.