The European Union on Thursday rejected the merger between South Korean shipbuilders Hyundai and Daewoo, saying a union between two of the world's biggest players in the industry would have given the combined company a global stranglehold on the production of liquified natural gas carriers.

EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager says the merger "would have led to less choice, higher prices and ultimately less innovation for European customers." European companies account for almost half the orders in the $45 billion market.

Mourners took Thursday a last look at the body of Omar Asaad, 80, in the family house, during his funeral in the West Bank village of Jaljulia, north of Ramallah.

Asaad, an 80-year-old Palestinian with U.S. citizenship, died of a heart attack after being detained by Israeli soldiers in the occupied West Bank.

Sudanese security forces fired tear gas to disperse protesters in the capital of Khartoum as thousands took to the streets Thursday against a coup that has plunged the country into grinding deadlock, activists said.

The demonstrations in Khartoum and elsewhere in Sudan are the latest in relentless protests since the military on Oct. 25 ousted the civilian-led government of Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok.

Europe's natural gas crisis isn't letting up. Reserves are low. Prices are high. Utility customers are facing expensive bills. Major Russian supplier Gazprom isn't selling gas like it used to.

It all raises the question: How exactly is Europe, which imports most of its energy, going to make it through the winter without a gas disaster, especially if the season turns out to be colder or longer than usual?

The website of Iran's supreme leader has showcased an animated video that appears to show a robot calling in a drone strike to assassinate former President Donald Trump.

The animated video was part of a contest to mark the Jan. 3, 2020 killing of Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who was slain in an American drone strike in Baghdad.

U.K. Foreign Secretary Liz Truss called for Britain and the European Union to rebuild their relationship, as she and bloc's top Brexit official met Thursday for talks on a thorny dispute over Northern Ireland trade.

Truss and European Commission Vice President Maros Sefcovic were meeting at Chevening House, the foreign secretary's official country retreat in southeast England.

India and Britain on Thursday launched talks on a free trade deal that is expected to boost bilateral trade by billions of dollars in one of the most ambitious negotiations after Brexit.

Britain's International Trade Secretary Anne-Marie Trevelyan met with Piyush Goyal, India's minister of commerce and industry, in New Delhi before formal talks next week.

Russia on Thursday sharply raised the stakes in a showdown with the West over Ukraine, with a top diplomat saying he wouldn't exclude a Russian military deployment to Cuba and Venezuela if tensions with the United States mount.

Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, who led the Russian delegation in Monday's talks with the United States in Geneva, said in televised remarks that he would neither confirm nor exclude the possibility that Russia could send military assets to Cuba and Venezuela.

A former Syrian secret police officer was convicted by a German court Thursday of crimes against humanity for overseeing the abuse of detainees at a jail near Damascus a decade ago.

Anwar Raslan is the highest-ranking Syrian official so far convicted of the charge. The verdict was keenly anticipated by those who suffered abuse or lost relatives at the hands of President Bashar Assad's government in Syria's long-running conflict.

European Parliament lawmakers have called for a committee to investigate rights abuses by European Union governments using powerful spyware produced by Israel's NSO Group.

Meanwhile, the Polish Senate formally approved the formation of a committee to investigate evidence that three critics of the country's right-wing government were hacked with the spyware. Sen. Marcin Bosacki, who will lead the inquiry, said the step was needed "due to the deepest concern for our democracy and the future of the Polish state."