After World War I, Germany, which had invaded Belgium, had to fork over billions to cover the damages the war had caused. The end of World War II saw Japan, after invading the Philippines, forced to pay reparations. But as President Trump tries to end Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, he has flipped traditional U.S. foreign … Read more
Boris Spassky, the world chess champion whose career was overshadowed by his loss to Bobby Fischer in the “Match of the Century” in 1972, died on Thursday in Moscow. He was 88. His death was announced by the International Chess Federation, the game’s governing body, which did not cite a cause. He had been sick … Read more
Fearful that their son was becoming entangled in a gang and having failed to change his behavior, two London parents tricked him into traveling to Ghana, where they enrolled him in a strict boarding school and left him. A judge ruled on Thursday that they were acting in his best interest. The boy, now 14, … Read more
While sitting beside Prime Minister Keir Starmer of the United Kingdom in the Oval Office on Thursday, President Trump said repeatedly that he trusted Vladimir V. Putin of Russia not to violate the terms of whatever peace deal that might soon be reached to end the war in Ukraine. “I think he’ll keep his word,” … Read more
Rose Girone was eight months pregnant and living in Breslau, Germany, in 1938 when her husband was sent to the Buchenwald concentration camp. She secured passage to Shanghai, only to be forced to live in a bathroom in a Jewish ghetto for seven years. Once settled in the United States, she rented whatever she could … Read more
President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia lauded the Trump administration on Thursday for its efforts to mend ties with the Kremlin. Speaking in Moscow at the annual meeting of Russia’s intelligence agency, the Federal Security Service, Mr. Putin praised the new U.S. administration for “pragmatism, a realistic worldview” and “discarding many stereotypes, so-called ‘rules’ and … Read more
On the face of it, the Russian actor Yura Borisov was an unlikely actor to land an Oscar nomination in 2025. Just a few years ago he played a guileless soldier in a Kremlin-sponsored movie that celebrated a Soviet tank model. Later, he starred in a biopic of Mikhail Kalashnikov, the man who invented the … Read more
The mother of a jailed British Egyptian activist has been hospitalized and is at risk of sudden death, a doctor has said, as her hunger strike to demand her son’s release reached 151 days. Laila Soueif, the mother of Alaa Abd El Fattah, one of Egypt’s best-known political prisoners, has survived since late September on … Read more
Three years ago, support for members of a Ukrainian political party that advocated closer ties with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia plunged to near zero after Russian forces invaded Ukraine, flattening whole cities and killing tens of thousands of Ukrainians. The party, called the Opposition Platform for Life, was banned, some members went to … Read more
Prosecutors in Romania have opened a criminal case against Calin Georgescu, an ultranationalist politician who in November won the first round of a presidential election only to have his victory annulled when the Constitutional Court ordered a redo of the vote. The start of criminal proceedings against Mr. Georgescu, a fierce critic of NATO and … Read more