China vowed retaliation against a proposed $8 billion U.S. sale of advanced fighter jets to Taiwan, threatening to impose sanctions on American firms participating in such a deal.

Two of the Russian specialists killed in the explosion at a White Sea missile testing range died not of traumatic injuries from the blast itself but of radiation sickness before they could be taken to Moscow for treatment, the independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta reported Wednesday.

Iceland’s leader has announced she will skip U.S. Vice President Mike Pence’s visit to her Nordic nation, opting instead to keep a prior commitment to attend a trade union conference in Sweden.

At least 2,300 people, mostly young men, have been detained in Indian-administered Kashmir during a security lockdown and communications blackout imposed to curtail unrest after New Delhi stripped the disputed region of statehood, according to top Kashmir police and arrest statistics reviewed by The Associated Press.

Italian Premier Giuseppe Conte announced his resignation Tuesday, blaming the collapse of his 14-month-old populist government on his rebellious and politically ambitious deputy prime minister who triggered a political crisis in a gambit to force early elections that could bring the right-wing, anti-migrant leader to power.

On a recent sweltering Saturday, a day now reserved for protest in Hong Kong, a demonstrator named Wayne stepped past a row of plastic barricades, lifted a pair of binoculars and squinted.

The European Union and Britain, which are hurtling toward a costly, damaging no-deal split in a little over two months, kicked off a high-wire week of diplomacy Tuesday by entrenching themselves deeper in their irreconcilable positions.

Thousands of French police are setting up checkpoints and combing Atlantic beaches to secure the southwestern coast for the world leaders who are coming for the G-7 summit this weekend.

Brandishing a fake gun, a man on Tuesday took dozens of hostages on a bus in Brazil and threatened to set the vehicle on fire with gasoline before police shot him dead in a four-hour standoff broadcast live on television.

Russia has resumed sharing data from radiation monitoring stations in Siberia after some were taken offline following a deadly explosion at a missile range, an nuclear weapons watchdog said Tuesday, while an American expert said the fact that more than one Russian site went offline at the same time suggests it was not the work of Mother Nature.

As Afghanistan mourned the 63 people killed in a suicide bombing at a Kabul wedding, a brother of the groom spoke through tears of his weariness at the bloodshed in the country and the crushing guilt he felt at having to face his neighbors, many of whom lost relatives in the weekend blast.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is facing rising criticism of his Brexit strategy at home as he increases pressure on the European Union to re-open negotiations ahead of key meetings with his French and German counterparts later this week.

Britain’s government plans to call a summit of social media companies to discuss what more they can do to fight online misinformation about vaccines following a spike in measles cases.

Airstrikes targeted a Turkish army convoy inside a rebel-held part of northwestern Syria on Monday, killing three civilians and wounding 12 others, the Turkish Defense Ministry said. Syria, however, said the Turkish convoy was carrying ammunition to rebels who have lost ground this month amid a government offensive to retake their last stronghold in the country.

An Iranian supertanker with $130 million worth of light crude oil that the U.S. suspects is tied to a sanctioned organization has left Gibraltar and was heading Monday east into the Mediterranean Sea, with its next destination reported to be Greece.

A major, out-of-control wildfire in Spain’s Canary Islands was throwing flames 160 feet into the air on Monday, forcing emergency workers to evacuate more than 9,000 people, authorities said.

Greenland is not for sale and U.S. President Donald Trump’s idea of buying the semi-autonomous Danish territory in the Arctic from Denmark is “an absurd discussion,” Denmark’s prime minister said.

China lashed out at Taiwan on Monday over its offer of political asylum to participants in Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protest movement, a day after hundreds of thousands of people marched peacefully in the latest massive demonstration in the Chinese territory.