World News

The U.S. military plans to send an Army brigade to Africa next year. Some 4,000 soldiers would deploy — in small units and at different times — to help train and advise African troops. It's part of an Obama administration plan to address the growing challenge posed by terrorism in Africa.

Archaeologists are unearthing evidence that the city of Bethlehem, in the West Bank, celebrated as the birthplace of Jesus, may not have been the actual Bethlehem of his birth. They have discovered a Bethlehem that existed in the Galilee near Nazareth.

Since the uprising began, Ibrahim Abazid has been a protester, a rebel fighter and an aid worker. Now he is looking to form a city council that could run his hometown in southern Syria.

Say the words "high-tech startup" and chances are you picture a world that's mostly white, male and set in Silicon Valley. Now, a group in Nairobi, Kenya, is working to get more female entrepreneurs into the male-dominated world of tech.

Amid continued bloodshed in several parts of Syria, international envoy Lakhdar Brahimi held another round of talks with President Bashar Assad in Damascus. But there was no sign of progress toward a peace deal.

In Britain, every year on Christmas Day, the Queen delivers a speech to her subjects. Recently in Cornwall, which is part of England, a new royal tradition has taken root based on an episode of The Simpsons.

Raised as Christians, they say their ancestors were Sephardic Jews expelled from Spain more than 500 years ago; they now practice Orthodox Judaism. Similar cases have turned up in other countries in recent years.

Japan's economy was a world beater in the 1980s. But the country has now gone through two tough decades and there's no end in sight. What lessons might it hold for the U.S. as it confronts the "fiscal cliff"?

After the United Nations voted overwhelmingly to recognize the Palestinians as a non-member state, Israel announced it would expand settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. If completed, the project would effectively divide the West Bank in two, according to the Palestinians.

Starting in January, the French government will provide contraceptives for girls ages 15 to 18 — without charge and without parental notification. The measure, which passed parliament without debate, aims to reduce teen pregnancies by increasing access to birth control and education.