CBSN International News

A smattering of protests against President Emmanuel Macron's plan to raise France's retirement age from 62 to 64 took place Saturday in Paris and beyond, as uncollected garbage continued to reek in the streets of the French capital amid a strike by sanitation workers.

A strong earthquake shook the region around Ecuador's second-largest city on Saturday, killing at least twelve people, damaging homes and buildings, and sending panicked residents into the streets.

An American couple is using advanced technology to unearth an ancient civilization that might hold the key to building the cities of the future.

Mexico's president said Friday that U.S. families were to blame for the fentanyl overdose crisis because they don't hug their kids enough.

Russian fighter pilots involved in an encounter with a U.S. drone that resulted in its crash were given state awards, the Defense Ministry announced Friday. The move appears to signal Moscow's intention to adopt a more aggressive stance toward future U.S. surveillance flights.

Mexico City — Mexican authorities have arrested a 14-year-old boy nicknamed "El Chapito" for the drug-related killing of eight people near Mexico City, the federal Public Safety Department said Thursday. The boy allegedly rode up on a motorcycle and opened fire on a family in the low-income Mexico City suburb of Chimalhuacan.

Poland said Thursday it plans to give Ukraine about a dozen MiG-29 fighter jets, which would make it the first NATO member to fulfill Kyiv's increasingly urgent requests for warplanes to defend itself against the Russian invasion.

Opposition lawmakers in France's National Assembly booed and jeered as Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne announced she was pushing through controversial pension reforms as it looked clear the government did not have the support to win the planned vote.

North Korea test-launched an intercontinental ballistic missile in a display of military might Thursday, just hours before the leaders of South Korea and Japan were to meet at a Tokyo summit expected to be overshadowed by North Korean nuclear threats.

Iranian police said Wednesday that 110 suspects have been arrested in connection with the mysterious poisonings of thousands of girls in schools across the country.

A lion named Bob Junior, who was known as the "King of the Serengeti," was killed by rival lions on Saturday, CBS News partner network BBC News reported. The fearsome big cat, also known as Snyggve, had dominated his territory for seven years alongside his brother, Tryggve, who is also presumed dead.

Ukraine has invited Florida Governor Ron DeSantis to visit the country after he called the war there a "territorial dispute" and not one of the United States' "vital national interests."

Mexico's Defense Department said Tuesday that soldiers found over 1.83 million fentanyl pills at a stash house in the border city of Tijuana. The discovery came just one day before Mexico's president claimed the synthetic opioid is not produced in the country.

United Nations — On March 2, 2022, just one week into Russian President Vladimir Putin's full-scale invasion of neighboring Ukraine, International Criminal Court (ICC) Prosecutor Karim Kahn opened an investigation into alleged war crimes committed in the country at the request of 43 nations that are state parties to the court. Only a year later, the prosecutor is set to open two war crimes cases, as first reported by The New York Times and Reuters, and will seek arrest warrants for individuals involved in the alleged abduction of Ukrainian children and targeting of civilian infrastructure.

King Charles III knighted Brian May, co-founder of the rock group Queen, during a Tuesday investiture ceremony at Buckingham Palace, the royal family announced. In addition to his fame as a rock guitarist, May is also an astrophysicist.

Researchers have discovered the oldest known remains of a giant ancient oceanic reptile, known as an ichthyosaur, on a remote Arctic island, offering new evidence of how the creature may have evolved. 

Ten people were shot to death and another five were wounded in an attack at a bar in Mexico's central state of Guanajuato over the weekend, officials said.

A submarine with two dead bodies and nearly three tons of cocaine aboard was seized in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Colombia, the country's navy announced Sunday. Two survivors "in poor health" were also found on the vessel and given first aid.

Two men died Monday after a pickup truck plowed into pedestrians who were walking beside a road in the eastern Quebec town of Amqui, officials said.

President Biden and the leaders of two close U.S. allies formally announced Monday that Australia will purchase nuclear-powered attack submarines from the U.S. to modernize its fleet amid growing concern about China's influence in the Indo-Pacific region.

Tokyo's high court on Monday ordered a retrial for an 87-year-old former professional boxer who has been on death row for more than five decades after a murder conviction that his lawyers said was based on a forced confession and fabricated evidence.

The South African rapper Costa Titch died on stage while performing, police said Sunday, as they opened an investigation into the circumstances of the 28-year-old's sudden death.

Seoul, South Korea — The South Korean and U.S. militaries launched their biggest joint military exercises in years Monday, as North Korea said it tested submarine-launched cruise missiles in an apparent protest of the drills it views as an invasion rehearsal. North Korea's launches Sunday signal the country likely will conduct provocative weapons testing activities during the U.S.-South Korean drills that are to run for 11 days. Last week, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un ordered his troops to be ready to repel its rivals' "frantic war preparation moves."

In what is now southern Italy, Pompeii was a bustling metropolis, until an eruption from the mighty volcano Vesuvius engulfed it in ash nearly 2,000 years ago. The stone skeleton of this ancient city has emerged through centuries of excavations – an intriguing glimpse of another time. Yet, at least one-third of the Roman city remains buried, and that means the tantalizing discoveries continue.

Israeli forces shot and killed three Palestinian militants Sunday who opened fire on troops in the occupied West Bank, the military said, the latest bloodshed in a year-long wave of violence in the region.

He's been Britain's reigning monarch since September last year, but King Charles III and his Queen Consort, Camilla, will be formally crowned this spring in a coronation ceremony steeped in centuries of tradition — with a few small tweaks expected for the modern age. 

Dubai, United Arab Emirates — Iran and Saudi Arabia on Friday agreed to reestablish diplomatic relations and reopen embassies after years of tensions between the two countries, including a devastating attack on the heart of the kingdom's oil production attributed to Tehran. The deal, struck in Beijing this week amid its ceremonial National People's Congress, represents a major diplomatic victory for the Chinese as Gulf Arab states perceive the United States slowly withdrawing from the wider Middle East. It also comes as diplomats have been trying to end a yearslong war in Yemen, a conflict in which both Iran and Saudi Arabia are deeply entrenched.

A Thursday night shooting at a Jehovah's Witnesses hall in the German city of Hamburg left eight people dead, including a former member of the congregation identified as the shooter, police said Friday. Four men and two women were killed, including one who was pregnant. Her unborn 28-week-old baby also died.

Chaim Topol, the Israeli actor best known for his starring role as Tevye in "Fiddler on the Roof," has died at age 87 in Tel Aviv, Israeli leaders confirmed on Thursday. 

A gunman opened fire on a crowded street in Tel Aviv, Israel, Thursday night, wounding three. The gunman was killed by police, Israeli authorities said.

Someone claiming to be from the Mexican drug cartel allegedly responsible for the abduction of four Americans and the killing of two of them has condemned the violence and purportedly will turn over its own members who were involved to authorities.

A group of scientists analyzing global data collected over the past four decades have found a "rapid increase" in ocean plastic pollution since 2005, according to a research article published in the journal Plos One. That increase has created a "plastic smog" in the world's oceans made up of an estimated 171 trillion plastic particles, the scientists said.

TikTok announced on Wednesday that it will be implementing a new security measure in Europe called "Project Clover," which is intended to strengthen existing protections for user data — and perhaps address concerns in the face of political pressure. 

Paris — French energy group EDF has reported discovering a significant new crack in a cooling pipe at a nuclear power plant on the Channel coast, in the latest such incident to plague the energy sector. The group has been beset by maintenance problems at its ageing park of reactors over the last year that have forced it to take more than a dozen of them offline for checks and emergency repairs.

Islamabad — As the world marks International Women's Day on Wednesday, the women of Afghanistan have little to celebrate. The Taliban regime has methodically stripped them of their basic rights since reclaiming power over the country in the summer of 2021. Forced from most workplaces and higher education, many women with the means to do so have left their country, and thousands now live as refugees in neighboring Pakistan.

Washington — A bipartisan group of senators unveiled a bill Tuesday that would give the executive branch new powers to take action against tech companies with ties to foreign adversaries and cut them off from the U.S. market, a measure that would allow the Biden administration to eventually ban Chinese-owned TikTok and other tech products in the name of protecting national security.

A Spanish court on Monday sentenced a couple for stealing 45 bottles of wine worth over 1.6 million euros from a hotel restaurant, in what police called a "meticulously planned" theft.

United Nations — U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was expected to arrive Tuesday for an unannounced visit to Ukraine's capital Kyiv, hoping to shore-up the deal struck between Ukraine and Russia last year to allow for the export of grain from both countries. The agreement, negotiated and implemented by the U.N. and Turkey, must be renewed by March 18, but there's concern Russia may decline to keep it going.

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin arrived in Iraq Tuesday on an unannounced visit barely two weeks before the 20th anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.

The Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris is set to reopen to the public in December 2024, five years after a major fire damaged the landmark in 2019, according to the Paris Tourist Office official website. The cathedral's iconic spire collapsed in the blaze, and has been a major focus of the reconstruction effort.

Archaeologists unearthed a Sphinx-like statue and the remains of a shrine in an ancient temple in southern Egypt, antiquities authorities said Monday.

At first glance, the scene at a church in West London looks and sounds like any afterschool club where kids play and engage in art projects. But families gather there for more than fun and games — going to keep warm, if only for a few hours.

Iran's supreme leader said Monday that if a series of mysterious poisonings at girls' schools are proven to be deliberate, the culprits should be sentenced to death for committing an "unforgivable crime."

Four U.S. citizens were kidnapped after gunmen opened fire on their vehicle in the northern Mexico border city of Matamoros, the FBI said Sunday.

The head of the U.N.'s nuclear agency said Saturday that Iran pledged to restore cameras and other monitoring equipment at its nuclear sites and to allow more inspections at a facility where particles of uranium enriched to near weapons-grade were recently detected.

A bus carrying 40 elementary school students home from a trip to the French Alps plunged down a wooded slope into a creek Saturday, leaving the driver and his partner hospitalized with serious injuries, authorities said.

Tiffany & Co. has named BTS member Jimin as its newest brand "ambassador," marking the company's latest foray into the burgeoning Asian luxury goods market.

A new moai, one of Easter Island's iconic statues, was found in the bed of a dry laguna in a volcano crater, the Indigenous community that administers the site on the Chilean island has said.

Several people were injured by turbulence during a flight from the German city of Frankfurt to Mauritius on Thursday, the German news agency DPA reported.

Video has emerged of the moment that a passenger train and cargo train collided in Greece late Tuesday night, killing at least 42 people in the country's deadliest-ever rail disaster. The video from a surveillance camera shows one of the trains approaching before a bright flash of light and a massive explosion.