China on Thursday dismissed the decision by Canada and the United Kingdom to join Washington's diplomatic boycott of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympic Games as a "farce."

China is also unconcerned the officials' absence would spark a chain reaction, while numerous heads of state, government leaders and members of royal families have registered to attend, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin told reporters at a daily briefing.

Iraq and the U.S.-led coalition concluded a final round of technical talks to formally transition from a combat mission tasked to root out the Islamic State to an advisory mission to assist Iraqi forces, Iraqi security officials announced on Thursday.

Iraq's National Security Advisor Qassim al-Araji tweeted that the talks — which centered on the transition — had concluded, formally ending the coalition's combat mission. He said the coalition would continue providing assistance, advice and training for Iraqi forces.

Chinese squid vessels were documented using wide nets to illegally catch already overfished tuna as part of a surge in unregulated activity in the Indian Ocean, according to a new report by Norway-based watchdog group that highlights growing concerns about the lack of international cooperation to protect marine species on the high seas.

The report, published Wednesday by Trygg Mat Tracking, found that the number of squid vessels in the high seas of the Indian Ocean — where fishing of the species is not regulated — has exploded six-fold since 2016.

After years of looking abroad for answers, countries in the Middle East now appear to instead be talking to each other to find solutions following two decades defined by war and political upheaval.

The American withdrawals from Afghanistan and Iraq have played a part in that change. Once ostracized autocracies such as President Bashar Assad in Syria, and shunned former top figures such as Moammar Gadhafi's son in Libya, are back in the political arena amid the still smoldering ruins of the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings.

Lebanese authorities have freed a freelance American journalist who was detained in Beirut last month. The release came just hours after two international human rights groups called her detention arbitrary and demanded that she be set free.

Nada Homsi, the journalist, said after her release that her arrest was part of an intimidation campaign used by Lebanon's security agencies against foreign journalists.

President Joe Biden is ready to urge participants at the first-ever White House Summit for Democracy to reverse an ongoing "recession" of democracy that is playing out at a time of rising authoritarianism around the globe and extraordinary strains on foundational institutions in the U.S.

The two-day virtual summit that starts Thursday has been billed as an opportunity for leaders and civil society experts from some 110 countries to collaborate on fighting corruption and promoting respect for human rights. But the gathering already has drawn backlash from the United States' chief adversaries and other nations that were not invited to participate.

Saudi Arabia's crown prince is in Qatar on Thursday for the first time since the kingdom rallied other Arab states to end their years long rift and embargo on the small Gulf state.

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's visit to Qatar marks his third stop in the region this week as the Saudi heir to the throne tours the six U.S.-allied Gulf Arab states that make up the Gulf Cooperation Council. His meetings with Arab rulers are aimed at fortifying the kingdom's alliances as rival Iran resumes nuclear negotiations with world powers.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian held talks in Algeria Wednesday in a bid to heal the latest rift between the North African country and its former colonial ruler.

Le Drian's trip, kept secret until the last minute, is a "working visit, to evaluate and relaunch the relationship" and he is set to meet President Abdelmadjid Tebboune, a French foreign ministry source told AFP on condition of anonymity.

Rembrandt van Rijn's iconic painting "The Night Watch" will be restretched to get rid of deformations in its top left corner, the Netherlands' national museum announced Wednesday.

The 379.5x453.5-centimeter (149.4x178.5-inch) canvas will be removed from its wooden stretcher next month and placed on a new one to remove rippling that was caused when the world famous painting was housed in a temporary gallery while the Rijksmuseum underwent major renovations from 2003-2013.

Instagram on Tuesday launched a feature that urges teenagers to take breaks from the photo-sharing platform and announced other tools aimed at protecting young users from harmful content on the Facebook-owned service.

The previously announced "Take A Break" feature encourages teens to stop scrolling if they have been on the social media platform for a while, Instagram head Adam Mosseri said in a blog post. It rolled out to the U.S., United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, New Zealand and Australia on Tuesday and would reach the rest of the world early next year, he said.