Israel spent about 100 billion shekels ($28 billion) on military conflicts in 2024, the finance ministry said on Tuesday, a figure that has sharply pushed up government borrowing and the country's debt burden. The ratio has risen 9 percentage points over the past two years, largely due to Israel's wars against Palestinian militant groups Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Entering the Gaza war in 2023, Israel's low debt-to-GDP ratio provided flexibility, allowing funding to support displaced populations, businesses and reservists, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said.
U.S. President Donald Trump's return to the White House has been met with both relief and disappointment across world markets as investors try to work out what the next four years will bring. "The approach will be chaotic, unpredictable, spur of the moment and driven by Trump himself," said Russel Matthews, senior portfolio manager, global macro at RBC BlueBay Asset Management. Calling out Canada and Mexico as potential targets for tariffs took a further toll on their currencies, which fell sharply following Trump's inauguration speech.
The United States withdrawing from the Paris Agreement is a blow to global cooperation on climate change, but other countries are marching ahead and stepping up leadership on the issue.During the last Trump presidency, the EU and China launched a climate dialogue with Canada to ensure unwavering high-level support for the Paris Agreement while the United States was outside the process.
Greenpeace activists evaded the World Economic Forum's tight security checks on Tuesday, staging a brief climate change protest outside the main hall of the annual meeting in Davos. Dressed up in dark suits and white shirts, three protesters made it into the Congress Centre and scaled a balcony. Security staff intervened and escorted the protesters away, shortly before the official opening ceremony and a speech by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
After nearly 22 years in hiding, the two fugitives were arrested in near Barcelona.
Tuesday marks Donald Trump's first full day in office. Keep up with the USA TODAY Network's live coverage on his top priorities for Americans.
On foot or riding rickshaws, many Palestinians exhausted by war in Gaza began returning to the ruins of their homes on the third day of a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, shocked by complete destruction. The truce took effect on Sunday after 15 months of conflict with the handover of the first three hostages held by Hamas and the release of 90 Palestinians from Israeli jails. Now attention is starting to shift to the rebuilding of the coastal enclave which the Israeli military has laid to waste in its campaign to eliminate Hamas in retaliation for the militant group's Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel.
As wildfires continued to burn in Los Angeles, several new fires broke out in San Diego County, prompting evacuation orders and warnings.
Bank of America chair and CEO Brian Moynihan says the Fed need to start asking itself a different question.
Investors are appraising the likely impact of Trump's orders on stocks on the first trading day after the inauguration.
Policies like seeking to end birthright citizenship and refusing to spend money allocated by Congress could end up at the Supreme Court.
Denuclearization of North Korea is imperative, South Korea said Tuesday after President Donald Trump described the reclusive regime as a “nuclear power.”
Several children were among hundreds of people held in secret detention centres in Bangladesh, a commission investigating enforced disappearances carried out during the tenure of now deposed premier Sheikh Hasina revealed Tuesday.It highlighted a case where a pregnant woman -- held along with her two young children -- was beaten in a detention centre.
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Witnesses say guests at a ski resort hotel in Turkey tried to escape a fire that killed at least 10 people with ropes and sheets hung from windows.
"This is a week of high-impact and dangerous weather from coast to coast," AccuWeather Chief Meteorologist Jonathan Porter said.
European and Asian stock markets diverged Tuesday and the dollar rallied as Donald Trump wasted no time in starting his second term as US president with a raft of announcements affecting the global economy.On becoming president, Trump signed a slew of executive orders that indicated he could resume his hardball approach to global diplomacy and trade, including pulling out of the Paris climate accord and the World Health Organization.
When Syrian grandfather Omar Kafozi returned to his house near Damascus after Bashar al-Assad's ouster, he saw unfathomable destruction.Kafozi said that when Baraa first saw the damage, "she just stared and said, 'what's this destroyed house of ours?
An Israeli strike on a built-up refugee camp in the occupied West Bank has killed two people, the Palestinian Health Ministry said Tuesday, as a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip entered a third day. The identity of those killed in the Jenin refugee camp, where militants are active, was not immediately clear. Throughout the 15-month Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, Jenin has been a focus of Israeli raids into the occupied territory.
The World Health Organization said Tuesday it regretted US President Donald Trump's decision -- just hours after taking power -- to withdraw his country from the UN agency, saying it hoped he would "reconsider".The UN health agency said Tuesday it regretted the decision.