PATRIARCH KIRILL

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken says the U.S. will support efforts lead by Kenya and Angola to put an end to the violence in Congo’s east and to help solve the central African nation’s crisis with Rwanda.

The Vatican says Pope Francis will travel next month to Kazakhstan

The Vatican says Pope Francis will travel next month to Kazakhstan.

Pope Francis says he can no longer travel like he used to because of his strained knee ligaments.

South Africa’s ruling African National Congress party begins its key policy conference on Friday beset by internal divisions and the country’s economic woes.

The Ukrainian military has used a U.S.-supplied precision rocket system to deliver a morale-lifting knockout punch to a bridge Russia used to supply its forces in an occupied region of southern Ukraine.

Russia has targeted Ukraine’s Black Sea regions of Odesa and Mykolaiv with airstrikes despite a deal that was supposed to allow grain shipments from ports to resume.

Russian missiles have struck Ukraine’s Black Sea port of Odesa just hours after Moscow and Kyiv signed deals to allow grain exports to resume from there.

Ukrainian forces have damaged a bridge that is key to supplying Russian troops in southern Ukraine.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has paid tribute to the long-serving deputy secretary-general of his ruling African National Congress party Jessie Duarte, who died Sunday after a long battle with cancer.

Nightly protests in North Macedonia over the last week have left dozens of people injured.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said the deaths of 21 teenagers in a nightclub tragedy is a crime and South African officials must increase steps to prevent alcohol from being illegally sold to youths.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa is to attend the funeral in East London Wednesday for 21 teenagers who died in a mysterious tragedy at a tavern almost two weeks ago.

South Africans are struggling in the dark to cope with increased power cuts that have hit households and businesses across the country.

South African authorities are seeking answers after 21 underage teenagers partying after the end of exams died in a mysterious weekend incident at a nightclub.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has opened a meeting of leaders of major developing countries by saying the world should oppose unilateral sanctions and efforts by some countries to maintain their political and military power.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has received the final chapter of a report on an extensive judicial investigation into corruption.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa could face criminal charges and is already facing calls to step down over claims that he tried to cover up the theft of millions of dollars in U.S. currency that was hidden inside furniture at his game farm.

Britain has announced a new round of sanctions against Russia.

Pope Francis has blasted the “ferocity and cruelty” of Russian troops in Ukraine while praising the “heroism” and “courage” of Ukrainians to defend their land.

Embroiled in controversy, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa on Friday refused to answer questions about his alleged cover-up of a theft of large amounts of cash from his farm, saying only that he will appear before his party’s integrity committee over the accusations.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa was confronted in Parliament Thursday by opposition politicians who pressed him to step down from office pending a criminal investigation into allegations that he covered up a theft from his rural game farm.

The head of the Russian Orthodox Church has been removed from the latest round of European Union measures to punish Russia’s invasion of Ukraine at the insistence of Hungary.

The Vatican says Pope Francis will travel to Kazakhstan in September for an interfaith conference

The war in Ukraine took a starring role on the opening night of the 75th Cannes Film Festival and it has rarely been far out of frame since.

South Africa’s neutral stance on Russia’s war in Ukraine was a major topic of conversation as German Chancellor Olaf Scholz meets Tuesday with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, to end his three-nation tour of Africa.

The Vatican’s financial trial has taken a surreal turn with a defendant asserting she escorted two emissaries of Russian President Vladimir Putin into the Holy See to negotiate the return of relics to the Russian Orthodox Church.

The Russian filmmaker Kirill Serebrennikov, one of the few Russian filmmakers at this year's Cannes Film Festival, says “art is always against war."

The Vatican’s foreign minister is heading to Kyiv this week as the Holy See seeks to balance its concern for Ukrainians with its efforts to keep open a channel of dialogue with Russia.

The NHL is wrapping up the first round of the playoffs with a rare treat.

Finland’s leaders have come out in favor of applying to join NATO, and Sweden could do the same within days.

Vladimir Tarasenko had three goals in the third period to break open a tied game and series, and the St. Louis Blues pushed the Minnesota Wild to the edge of elimination with a 5-2 victory in Game 5.

Jordan Kyrou and David Perron each scored twice, Jordan Binnington made 28 saves in his first start this postseason and the St. Louis Blues beat the Minnesota Wild 5-2 to even the best-of-seven Western Conference series at 2-2.

Kirill Kaprizov had a goal and an assist, Marc-Andre Fleury stopped 29 shots, and the Minnesota Wild beat the St. Louis Blues 5-1 to take a 2-1 lead in their Western Conference playoff series.

Kirill Kaprizov had a hat trick and Joel Eriksson Ek scored twice for the Minnesota Wild, who snapped back at the St. Louis Blues with a 6-2 victory to even their first-round playoff series at one game apiece.

During their conversation, Pope Francis said, Russian Orthodox Church leader Patriarch Kirill was listing off all the justifications for the war from a sheet of paper he was holding.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa faces daunting political challenges including being defied within his party over his anti-corruption drive and derided as ineffective by the opposition.

Pope Francis hasn’t made much of a diplomatic mark in Russia’s war in Ukraine: His appeals for a truce have gone unheeded, and his planned meeting with the head of the Russian Orthodox Church was called off.

Pope Francis has told an Italian newspaper that he has offered to travel to Moscow to meet with President Vladimir Putin to try to end Russia’s war in Ukraine, and suggested the invasion might have been provoked by NATO’s eastward expansion.

Hundreds of Ukrainian refugees are camping out in Mexico City and waiting for the U.S. government to allow them into the country.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa abandoned his Workers’ Day speech in the northwestern city of Rustenburg after striking mineworkers stormed the stage.

The Moscow-based church's leadership has framed Russia's invasion of Ukraine in holy terms - as a defense of conservative values against a morally-corrupt West. Now, the war has prompted dissent within the Orthodox Christian faith.

The Moscow-based church's leadership has framed Russia's invasion of Ukraine in holy terms - as a defense of conservative values against a morally-corrupt West. Now, the war has prompted dissent within the Orthodox Christian faith.

Carnegie Hall plans a return to a relatively full schedule next season for the first time since 2018-19, presenting about 150 events that include Kirill Petrenko’s first New York appearances as music director of the Berlin Philharmonic.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine has upended Eastern Orthodoxy, deepening religious rifts between the two countries.

Despite Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Moscow's membership in the Group of 20 remains firmly intact.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has met with Pope Francis at the Vatican as the war in Ukraine cast a shadow over two leaders who have long sought closer ties with Russia.

Declaring a national state of disaster, South Africa has allocated $67 million to help those hit by floods that have killed at least 448 people in the eastern city of Durban and the surrounding KwaZulu-Natal province.

Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill's support for Putin's Ukraine war has fractured his church

The head of the Russian Orthodox Church is casting the war in Ukraine as a religious and national drama, an existential battle of good and evil, a clash between Russo-Slavic tradition and values and the corrupting foreign influences festering at Russia’s border.

Patriarch Kirill has angered many in echoing the language Vladimir Putin uses to justify the Ukraine invasion.

Heavy rains and flooding have killed at least 341 people in South Africa’s eastern KwaZulu-Natal province, including the city of Durban, and more rainstorms are forecast in the coming days.

With tensions around the war in Ukraine as a backdrop, the Cannes Film Festival plans to host some 35,000 people as the movie industry looks to reclaim its pre-pandemic glamour.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa says flooding in the Durban area has taken at least 259 lives and is a “catastrophe of enormous proportions.”.

Patriarch Kirill's vociferous support of the invasion of Ukraine has drawn strong rebukes from religious leaders who say he has forsaken Christian teachings by supporting the Kremlin’s destructive campaign.

Malaysian authorities say two European divers have been rescued by fishermen but a third, a 14-year-old Dutch, had died, four days after they disappeared off a southern Malaysian island and drifted some 70 nautical miles.

A plane, fishermen and and jet skiers have joined an expanded search entering a third day for three Europeans, including two teenagers, who disappeared while diving off a southern Malaysian island.

Pope Francis has kissed a battered Ukrainian flag that was brought to him from the Ukrainian city of Bucha and called again for an end to the war.

With declining cases of COVID-19, South Africa has ended its national state of disaster, the legal framework used for two years to impose restrictions to combat the pandemic.

Pope Francis says he is still working on arranging a meeting with the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, despite that leader's seeming justification for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Patriarch Kirill, a close ally of Vladimir Putin, has lent a spiritual justification for the war in Ukraine.

While Russia has sought to justify its assault on Ukraine with complaints about NATO's eastward expansion, it has also claimed that foreign actors have encroached on its religious turf in Ukraine — even alleging the United States helped instigate an Eastern Orthodox schism there. Moscow Patriarch Kirill, head of the Russian Orthodox Church, said both the West and a rival patriarch were “pursuing the same end” of seeking to weaken Russia and “make the brotherly peoples — Russians and Ukrainians — enemies.” “You cannot call it a religious war, but it has a religious dimension,” said the Rev. Cyril Hovorun, an Orthodox priest, native of Ukraine and professor of ecclesiology, international relations and ecumenism at University College Stockholm.

At church, Ukrainians pray for an end to war. But a rift is forming: The head of the Russian Orthodox Church has defended Moscow's invasion. Some in Ukraine want to break away from his leadership.

War in Ukraine is a 'metaphysical' battle against a civilization built on 'gay parades,' Russian Orthodox leader says

The head of the Polish bishops’ conference has done what Pope Francis has avoided doing by publicly condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine

Russian President Vladimir Putin has called Pope Francis to congratulate him on his 85th birthday, praising the pontiff’s efforts to strengthen ties between the Vatican and Russia

South Africa is struggling to balance its fight against the coronavirus with its dire need to resume economic activity. The country with the Africas most developed economy also has its highest number of infections more than 19,000. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay, file)TANZANIA The U.N. chief on Thursday warned the largest gathering of world leaders since the coronavirus pandemic began that it will cause unimaginable devastation and suffering around the world, with historic levels of hunger and famine and up to 1.6 billion people unable to earn a living unless action is taken now. Nearly 50 world leaders spoke by video at the event along with economic experts, including the heads of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. African leaders also support Gutteres' call for economic relief worth at least 10% of global GDP, which would mean over $200 billion in additional support for Africa.

From U.S. President Donald Trump to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, global decision-makers have frequently set bad examples, whether it's refusing to wear masks or breaking confinement rules aimed at protecting their citizens from COVID-19. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said normally she would fire Clark but that the country couldnt afford massive disruption in its health sector while it was fighting the virus. He and others didnt wear masks during those meetings, and Putin also didnt cover his face for events marking Nazi Germanys defeat in World War II. The prime minister has respected all guidelines, according to a statement read by a spokesman. And as such the prime minister was with her during her last night."