World

Charles III has visited Germany 40 times before but the monarch will never have seen anything like Wednesday's welcoming ceremony for his first foreign trip as king at Berlin's Brandenburg Gate.

Spectators lined the sides of the square in front of the Gate, waving German and British flags as a military band marched towards their position ahead of the royals' arrival.

The Vatican said Wednesday that Pope Francis, 86, was in hospital in Rome for previously scheduled health checks, without giving further details.

"The Holy Father has been at Gemelli (Hospital) since this afternoon for some previously scheduled checks," wrote Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni in a one-sentence statement.

Marine Le Pen’s far-right Rassemblement National (National Rally or RN) party hopes to use the national crisis to continue its long ascent in French politics, adopting a balancing act as its strategy. RN opposes President Emmanuel Macron’s pension reforms along with most of the French public, while presenting itself as the party of order by condemning public disorder.

As hundreds of thousands took to the streets of France for the 10th day of demonstrations on Tuesday, everyone knew Le Pen has been opposed to Macron’s pension reforms – but the far-right politician and her party were conspicuous by their absence.

Credit Suisse, the failed Swiss bank that was just purchased by the UBS Group, has a history of facilitating tax evasion in the United States — but a pair of whistleblowers say it has been continuing for years after regulators and prosecutors thought they had stamped it out, reported CNBC on Wednesday.

"For years, the private bank has provided a safe haven for wealthy American clients to hide assets from the IRS — even after it was caught and prosecuted for doing the same thing more than a decade ago, according to two former Credit Suisse bankers who spoke in exclusive interviews with CNBC and are working with the U.S. government as whistleblowers," reported Eamon Javers.

The British royal family led tributes Wednesday to comedian and entertainer Paul O'Grady who made drag culture mainstream with his alter ego Lily Savage.

O'Grady, who died on Tuesday at the age of 67, went on to become a fixture on hit television shows as well as a campaigner for LGBTQ rights.

Bitter and earthy. Fit for instant brews only. Robusta coffee has a dire reputation, but a small group of farmers in Vietnam is trying to turn the bean's fortunes around as a warming world threatens the industry.

As an interior designer in trendy Ho Chi Minh City, Tran Thi Bich Ngoc, 42, largely stayed clear of Vietnamese coffee, puzzling over why it didn't taste as good as cups from abroad.

Brazilian Viktor Ferreira was elated in May 2018 when he was accepted into the elite Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) in Washington.

"Today we made the future... WE fucking did it!!!" he wrote a colleague.

Sanctions have been applied to Russia off and on, starting after the annexation of Crimea in 2014, but after the invasion, harsher sanctions were applied. The Wall Street Journal reports that they might finally be putting a massive squeeze on the Russian economy.

February marked the one-year anniversary of the war against Ukraine, and with it, the prices of oil and natural gas have surged around the world. For a time, that meant that Russia could increase its own costs of oil and gas, making a more significant profit.

A single father, who was separated from his daughter and sentenced on Tuesday to two years in prison over "discrediting" the Russian army, has fled house arrest, officials said.

Alexei Moskalyov, 54, first came to the authorities' attention last year after his daughter Maria drew a picture at school showing missiles next to a Russian flag heading towards a woman and child standing by a Ukrainian flag.

The UK government raised the terror threat level in Northern Ireland to "severe" on Tuesday, ahead of an expected visit by US President Joe Biden to mark the 25th anniversary of a landmark peace accord.

The domestic spy agency MI5 judged that the risk of an attack had gone from "substantial" to "severe", meaning an incident is judged "highly likely", Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris said.

Amsterdam launched a campaign on Tuesday to discourage tourists planning drug- and alcohol-fueled parties -- starting with young British men.

The Dutch capital has long been trying to curb rowdy behavior such as stag parties, especially near the famed red light area where sex workers operate.

The United Nations Security Council on Monday rejected a Russia-led effort to launch a fresh international probe into last year's sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines in the wake of investigative journalist Seymour Hersh's reports accusing the U.S. of carrying out the attack.

Brazil and China supported Russia's resolution while the U.S., France, the United Kingdom, and other Security Council members abstained, leaving the proposal short of the nine votes needed for passage.