A huge fire engulfed Brazil’s 200-year-old National Museum in Rio de Janeiro, lighting up the night sky with towering flames as firefighters and museum workers raced to save historical relics from the blaze.

The esteemed museum, which houses artifacts from Egypt, Greco-Roman art and some of the first fossils found in Brazil, was closed to the public at the time of the fire, which broke out at 7:30 p.m. Sunday local time, it said in a statement.

There were no reports of injuries, the museum said, and it wasn’t immediately clear how the fire began.

Roberto Robadey, a spokesman for the fire department, said 80 firefighters were battling the blaze and that by midnight local time it was “just about under control” and should be out within a few hours.

President Michel Temer called it “a sad day for all Brazilians.”

“Two hundred years of work, investigation and knowledge have been lost,” Temer said in a statement.

According to its website, the museum has a vast collection related to the history of Brazil and other countries, and that many of its collections came from members of Brazil’s royal family.

Robadey said firefighters got off to a slow start fighting the blaze because the two fire hydrants closest to the museum were not functioning. Instead, trucks had to be sent to get water from a nearby lake.

But he added that some of the museum’s pieces had been spared.

“We were able to remove a lot of things from inside with the help of workers of the museum,” Robadey told Globo News.

Connected to the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, the museum has expositions…

A Myanmar court sentenced two Reuters journalists to seven years in prison Monday for illegal possession of official documents, a ruling met with international condemnation that will add to outrage over the military’s human rights abuses against Rohingya Muslims.

Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo had been reporting on the brutal crackdown on the Rohingya when they were arrested and charged with violating the colonial-era Official Secrets Act, punishable by up to 14 years in prison. They had pleaded not guilty, contending that they were framed by police.

“Today is a sad day for Myanmar, Reuters journalists Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, and the press everywhere,” Stephen J. Adler, Reuters editor-in-chief, said in a statement. He said the charges were “designed to silence their reporting and intimidate the press.”

The case has drawn worldwide attention as an example of how democratic reforms in long-isolated Myanmar have stalled under the civilian government of Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, which took power in 2016. Though the military, which ruled the country for a half-century, maintains control of several key ministries, Suu Kyi’s rise to government had raised hopes for an accelerated transition to full democracy and her stance on the Rohingya crisis has disappointed many former admirers.

As the verdict was announced in the hot Yangon courtroom, Kyaw Soe Oo’s wife started crying, leaning into the lap of the person next to her. Outside the court, police and journalists shouted as the two Reuters reporters were led to a truck to be taken away.

“This is unfair,” Wa Lone…

Thousands of people are expected to attend a concert Monday evening in the eastern German city of Chemnitz against far-right protests.

The performances, by some of Germany’s most popular bands, come in reaction to a week of sometimes violent rallies by far-right groups against migrants — and leftist counter protests.

The nationalists’ protests were triggered by the fatal stabbing of a 35-year-old German man in Chemnitz on Aug. 26, allegedly by two migrants from Iraq and Syria.

The tension that has built up over the past week in Chemnitz reflects the growing polarization over Germany’s ongoing efforts to come to terms with an influx of more than 1 million refugees and migrants to the country since 2015.

The concert, which is being promoted under the #WeAreMore hashtag, is part of an effort by German civil society to position itself against the growing far-right movement in parts of Germany.

Former Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel on Monday harshly criticized the political establishment for being too passive when it comes to fighting far-right groups in Germany and asked them to make a stronger showing in places with simmering discontent and anti-migrant sentiment.

“I think it would be good if as many representatives as possible — not only in Chemnitz but everywhere — go to places where we think the citizens are not agreeing with our state,” he said.

But, Gabriel added, there was a clear line between angry citizens and those inciting the people with hatred.

“We have to go with toughness after these terrorists,” he said in an interview with Bild Television adding…

People smugglers are taking greater risks to ferry their human cargo toward Europe as Libya’s coast guard intercepts more and more boats carrying migrants, increasing the likelihood that those on board may die during the Mediterranean journeys, the U.N. refugee agency said Monday.

That’s one of the key findings from a new UNHCR report about efforts to reach Europe. The report, titled “Desperate Journeys,” said that even though the number of crossings and deaths has plunged compared to recent years, the voyage is more deadly in percentage terms for those who venture across.

It said that 2,276 people died last year while trying to cross, or one death for every 42 arrivals.

This year, it’s 1,095 deaths, or one out of every 18 arrivals. In June alone, the proportion hit one death for every seven arrivals.

On the Central Mediterranean route so far this year, there have been 10 separate incidents in which 50 or more people died — most after departing from Libya. Seven of those incidents have been since June alone, UNHCR said.

“The reason the traffic has become more deadly is that the traffickers are taking more risk, because there is more surveillance exercised by the Libyan coast guards,” said Vincent Cochetel, UNHCR’s special envoy for the central Mediterranean. “They are trying to cut the costs: It costs them more to keep those people here longer in their warehouses, under captivity.”

Libyan authorities intercepted or rescued 18,400 people between August last year and July this year — a 38-percent increase from the same period of 2016 and 2017. Arrivals by sea…

The sight of five burly guards blocking the way out of her dorm filled Ren Liping with rage.

It was 3 a.m. on a recent Saturday and the thin, bespectacled 26-year-old Chinese graduate student was exhausted. Her mind raced back to earlier in the day when she had tried once again to publicly protest her alleged rape. Again, the police had stopped her and held her at a station for hours. Again, she was escorted back to campus.

Now this.

She pounded on the glass door with her fist, but the men ignored her. “This is illegal!” she shouted, to no response. She felt nauseous. Her face was numb. She picked up a bicycle pump in the corner and smashed it against the glass.

The door shattered.

“Whoever tries to suppress my case will end up like this door,” Ren said to the men.

More than a year after she accused an ex-boyfriend of raping her on the China University of Petroleum campus in the coastal city of Qingdao, this had become Ren’s life: a series of attempts to protest the university and authorities’ mishandling of the case.

At every turn, Ren has been stymied by the school’s guards or the police, who say there’s no evidence of a crime. She was even detained in a hotel for six days at one point.

Her efforts highlight at once the challenges of reporting sexual assault in China and the determination of a new generation of Chinese women pushing the country into its own #MeToo moment despite attempts to silence them.

The movement has gathered considerable steam in China, with dozens of men, including prominent media personalities, non-profit advocates and even a top monk,…

Chinese President Xi Jinping on Monday pledged $60 billion in financing for projects in Africa in the form of assistance, investment and loans, as China furthers efforts to link the continent’s economic prospects to its own.

Speaking to a gathering of African leaders in Beijing, Xi said the figure includes $15 billion in grants, interest-free loans and concessional loans, $20 billion in credit lines, $10 billion for “development financing” and $5 billion to buy imports from Africa.

In addition, he said China will encourage companies to invest at least $10 billion in Africa over the next three years.

China’s outreach to Africa aims to build trade, investment and political ties with a continent often seen as overlooked by the U.S. and other Western nations. That has provided lucrative opportunities for Chinese businesses, while African nations are often happy to accept China’s offers that come without demands for safeguards against corruption, waste and environmental damage.

No details were given on specific projects, although Xi said China was planning initiatives in eight areas, including providing $147 million in emergency food aid, sending 500 agricultural experts to Africa, and providing scholarships, vocational training and trade promotion opportunities.

The pledge comes on top of a 2015 promise to provide African countries with $60 billion in funding that Xi said had either been delivered or arranged.

Also Monday, Xi promoted Beijing’s initiative to build ports and other infrastructure as a tool for “common prosperity” in a world facing challenges from trade…

The European Union’s top diplomat said Monday that the world is going through a time of chaos and that the 28-nation bloc must work more closely with international partners as the multilateral system comes under threat.

In a speech to EU ambassadors laying out her vision for the year to come, EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said that “the whole world is going through a moment of chaos, and the question is: is it a moment or is it a long-term trend?”

“The very idea of multilateralism is being challenged,” Mogherini said.

While she didn’t mention the U.S. or President Donald Trump directly, Mogherini underlined the importance of the Iran nuclear agreement and the global climate change pact rejected by Trump. She also referred to the central role of the World Trade Organization, whose rules are being tested by Trump’s policies.

“No great power is really great enough in the world of today,” she said.

Mogherini urged the ambassadors to reassure partners — ranging from Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea and all of Africa — that “Europe is not withdrawing from the world stage. On the contrary, we will be even more engaged in the year ahead.”

She said the European Commission has proposed increasing the budget of the bloc’s External Action Service — essentially a foreign office with about 140 delegations worldwide — by around 30 percent to show that “we are ready to play a role in the world, with our principles, with our values, with our policies, but also with our resources.”

With a combined population of around 500 million…