RUSSIA-NATO

MOSCOW — NATO members pushed Ukraine toward dropping its nonaligned status, Russia claimed Wednesday, and also criticized the alliance for expanding its military presence near Russian borders. Ukraine's parliament abandoned the nonaligned position Tuesday, possibly paving the way for a bid to join NATO, in defiance of Russia's protests. 

EU-SPAIN-KING

MADRID — Spain's new King Felipe VI will give his first Christmas Eve speech Wednesday amid intense interest over what he might say — or not say — about his sister Princess Cristina's indictment two days ago on tax fraud charges. The speech watched by millions on TV is the most important national address by Spanish kings and is a chance for Felipe to show his style as king and tell the nation what he thinks about the state of the economically hurting country and what Spaniards must do to improve it. 

POLAND-LOST ARCHITECTURE

WARSAW, Poland — Many splendid pieces of Warsaw's architecture are gone or disfigured forever — victims of war and communism. But now some can be appreciated again — in miniature. The fate of some of Warsaw's architectural gems reflects the tragic story of a city that went through years of war, then decades of communism in which buildings were torn down or neglected. Generations of residents have grown up unaware of the past splendor of the city once called the "Paris of the North." 

RUSSIA-ECONOMY

MOSCOW — Russia's central bank has made another move to shore up the ruble, offering hard currency loans to help companies and banks service their debts. The bank said Wednesday it would accept foreign currency debt obligations as collateral against the loans. The hope is that it will provide relief to those who can't tap foreign capital markets to refinance loans because of Western sanctions.

NKOREA-MYSTERY OUTAGE

LONDON — North Korea's microscopic corner of the Internet has had a rough couple of days, suffering seven outages in the last 48 hours, according to one Web traffic monitor. The mysterious problems have some talking of a retaliatory cyberattack by the United States, which holds Pyongyang responsible for last month's spectacular hack of Sony Pictures. American officials have fueled speculation with vague denials, but security experts say North Korea's Internet infrastructure is so skeletal that even amateurs — or a simple glitch — could have brought it clattering down.

EU-TURKEY-KURDS

ANKARA, Turkey — A Kurdish rebel commander has warned that fighting in Turkey's southeast could resume by June if efforts to end a 30-year insurgency make no progress by then, news reports said Wednesday. Murat Karayilan's comments came days after Turkish and Kurdish officials declared a "new phase" in the peace process after widespread protests by Kurds in October had threatened to derail the talks. 

GERMANY-ANTI-ISLAM RALLIES

BERLIN — Germany's president on Wednesday praised his compatriots' willingness to take in refugees and said he is glad that most people don't want to "seal Germany off," a message that comes as growing anti-Islam demonstrations in an eastern city have worried many. President Joachim Gauck's Christmas message didn't mention directly the rallies in Dresden organized by a group calling itself Patriotic Europeans against the Islamization of the West, or PEGIDA. But he said society "needs its citizens to respect each other and to heed each other, day in, day out."