TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — The Pacific Island nation of Nauru said Monday that it is switching diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to China, a move that reduces the dwindling number of Taiwan’s diplomatic allies to 12 around the world.

A statement from the government of Nauru said it was severing ties with Taiwan and seeking a resumption of relations with China.

BRUSSELS, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- Belgium has taken over the Presidency of the Council of the European Union (EU) for a challenging six-month term in 2024. The road ahead is no easy feat, with the European Parliament entering an election period in June, intensifying the urgency for the presidency to conclude numerous legislative dossiers.

Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo revealed in December that around 150 legislative dossiers are on the table, a point reiterated at the official presentation of the program for the Belgian Presidency of the Council of the EU.

HONG KONG (AP) — European markets opened lower while Asian markets were mostly higher on Monday as the week got off to a mixed start.

U.S. markets will be closed for Martin Luther King Day, a holiday.

France’s CAC 40 lost 0.1% to 7,454.74. Germany’s DAX slipped 0.1% to 16,688.90, and Britain’s FTSE 100 shed 0.2% to 7,619.80.

The future for the S&P 500 gained 0.1%, and that for the Dow Jones Industrial Average was virtually unchanged.

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — Denmark’s new King Frederik X visited the Danish parliament Monday, on his first formal day on the job, a day after his mother, Queen Margrethe, abdicated after 52 years on the throne.

Jan 15 (Reuters) - Yemen's Houthi movement will expand its targets in the Red Sea region to include U.S. ships, an official from the Iran-allied group said on Monday, as it vowed to keep up attacks after U.S. and British strikes on its sites in Yemen.

Attacks by the Houthis on ships in area since November have impacted companies and alarmed major powers in an escalation of Israel's more than three-month war with Hamas militants in Gaza. The group says it is acting in solidarity with Palestinians.

BROWNSVILLE, Texas (AP) — After Texas fenced off a park along the U.S.-Mexico border and began turning away Border Patrol agents, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott explained why at a campaign stop near Houston.

“We are not allowing Border Patrol on that property anymore,” Abbott said Friday, drawing applause from supporters while endorsing a state legislator running for reelection. He relayed frustration over migrants illegally entering the U.S. through the border city of Eagle Pass and federal agents loading them onto buses.

JERUSALEM (AP) — Missile fire struck a ship Monday just off the coast of Yemen in the Gulf of Aden, less than a day after Yemen’s Houthi rebels fired an anti-ship cruise missile toward an American destroyer in the Red Sea, officials said.

Details remained scarce on the missile strike, though it marked the latest attack roiling global shipping amid Israel’s war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Suspicion immediately fell on the Houthis.

SEOUL, Jan 15 (Reuters) - North Korea said on Monday it had tested a new solid-fuel hypersonic missile with intermediate range, amid an intensifying race for the next generation of long-range rockets that are difficult to detect and intercept.

The United States, China, Russia and other countries have also been developing hypersonic weapons in recent years.

Iowa. (AP) — As frigid temperatures scour the Midwest, the Republican presidential nominating process will officially start Monday with Iowa’s caucuses.

The quadrennial contest has been unusually quiet this year, a mark of former President Donald Trump’s commanding lead in the race. An arctic blast dropping the state into subzero temperatures and dumping snow during the final days of the runup didn’t help, either.

JERUSALEM, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- An Israeli woman was killed and at least 17 others injured in car-ramming and stabbing incidents in central Israel on Monday that the police said was "a serious terror attack."

Commander of the Central District of the Israeli Police Avi Bitton said that two Palestinian suspects had been arrested after the attack at the scene and were under investigation. He identified them as cousins from the Hebron area in the occupied West Bank.

Gaza (AP) —Israeli strikes hit Gaza City and soldiers battled militants in southern Gaza on Monday after the U.S., its top ally, said it was time to scale back operations. Palestinian authorities said the death toll in the enclave passed 24,000.

DAVOS, Switzerland (AP) — The world could have its first trillionaire within a decade, anti-poverty organization Oxfam International said Monday in its annual assessment of global inequalities timed to the gathering of political and business elites at the Swiss ski resort of Davos.

Oxfam, which for years has been trying to highlight the growing disparities between the super-rich and the bulk of the global population during the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting, reckons the gap has been “supercharged” since the coronavirus pandemic.