Pope Francis Thursday delivered his \u201cUrbi et Orbi\u201d message and blessing to the over 80 thousand pilgrims in St. Peter\u2019s Square. In his Christmas message, he condemned the trafficking, abuse, exploitation and violence that children are victim to, and the \u201cbrutal persecution\u201d of minorities, the killings and hostage taking around the world, and called for dialogue between the Israelis and Palestinians.<\/p>\n
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NATO\u2019s eastward enlargement will lead to a major military and political change in Europe and the world, and Russia will take the adequate measures in response, a Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman said on Thursday. According to him, the decision of the Ukrainian Parliament to strengthen ties with NATO, at the initiative of President Petro Poroshenko, was taken at a time when positive prospects emerged for settling the crisis in south-eastern Ukraine. The Russian official said the change noticed in Kiev\u2019s domestic and foreign policy is hardly likely to contribute to putting an end to Ukraine\u2019s deep economic and political crisis.<\/p>\n
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Four Romanians who got stranded together with another 120 foreign tourists in the Taman Negara National Park in Malaysia were rescued, the Romanian Foreign Ministry announced on Thursday. The national park, which covers over 430 thousand hectares of rainforest, was hit by the heaviest rainfalls and floods in four decades.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A roundup of domestic and international news<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":59337,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[28877,28940,28947],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-99877","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newsflash","tag-newsflash","tag-romanian-news","tag-world-news"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n