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BOGOTA, Colombia -- The presidents of Colombia and Venezuela met on Tuesday and said they would improve trade and security cooperation, as both countries seek to normalize relations following the election of Colombia’s first leftist leader. After the meeting in Venezuela’s presidential palace, Colombian President Gustavo Petro said it was “suicidal” for the governments of Venezuela and Colombia to have become estranged from each other recently, adding that the border between the countries had been forgotten and “turned over” to criminal mafias. Colombia’s president said both countries would now look for ways to share intelligence on drug trafficking groups, and added that he would lobby for Venezuela’s re-entry into the Andean Community of Nations, a regional trade and investment group t...

COPENHAGEN, Denmark -- A full preliminary vote count shows a center-left bloc is set to win Denmark’s election with a one-seat majority in Parliament. The result puts Prime Minister Mette Fredriksen in a strong position to stay in power. The result is preliminary and based on the assumption that a vote count in Greenland expected early Wednesday will give the autonomous territory’s two seats to the center-left bloc. Frederiksen was forced to call the election earlier this month amid the fallout from her government’s contentious decision to cull millions of minks as a pandemic response measure. The cull and chilling images of mass graves of minks have haunted Frederiksen since 2020 and eventually led to cracks in the center-left bloc. THIS IS BREAKING NEWS: Previous version of story is b...

TOKYO -- Japan’s Cabinet approved Friday a hefty economic package including 29 trillion yen ($200 billion) in government spending to counter the blow to household budgets from inflation, signaling that the greater concern of its policymakers is that the economy will stall, not overheat. While central banks around the world are raising interest rates aggressively to try to tame decades-high inflation, with its own inflation rate near 3%, Japan has stuck mainly to using fiscal measures, or government spending, to counter that challenge. The Bank of Japan underscored that when, wrapping up a policy meeting Friday, it stuck to its longstanding policy of keeping its benchmark interest rate at minus 0.1%. The Federal Reserve has been aggressively raising borrowing costs to combat chronic infl...

LONDON -- Northern Ireland's political deadlock deepened Friday when the U.K. government delayed calling an early election for the Belfast-based Assembly after a deadline to restore the mothballed administration expired. The limbo means more uncertainty and delays to government decision-making at a time when many people in Northern Ireland are struggling with soaring food and energy prices. A deadline for the Northern Ireland Assembly to elect a governing executive passed at midnight Thursday amid a dispute over post-Brexit trade rules. Under the rules of Northern Ireland’s power-sharing politics, a new election must be held within 12 weeks. Civil servants will keep essential services running in the meantime. U.K. Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris had been expected to annou...

WINNIPEG, Manitoba -- Canada's government announced Friday it is imposing sanctions on 35 more Russians in response to that country’s invasion of Ukraine and issuing bonds that individuals can purchase to support the Ukrainian government. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the group being sanctioned includes leaders of Russian state-owned energy company Gazprom and six energy sector entities. “As Russia continues its illegal and unjustifiable aggression against Ukraine, Canada will continue to support the Ukrainian government and people,” Trudeau said in a statement. The five-year Ukraine Sovereignty Bonds are to be offered to investors through Canadian banks and the money will be channeled to Ukraine through the International Monetary Fund. Trudeau was in Winnipeg, where the Congress ...