Canada on Monday joined Britain in closing its embassy in Cairo to the public for security reasons, with neither country providing details about any specific threat.

The move comes amid increasing attacks by Islamist militants in Egypt and calls from the extremist Islamic State group for attacks on Western targets.

Canadian police have filed charges against a 15-year-old boy for seeking to travel abroad to engage in "terrorist activity."

The boy, who cannot be named under laws protecting minors, is only the second person in the country ever to face such charges, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said late Wednesday.

Forty-one French tourists and two locals were injured in Cuba Monday when the bus they were traveling in hit another vehicle, media reports and diplomatic sources said.

In addition to the tourists, the Cuban driver and tour guide were also hurt, said the news agency Prensa Latina.

Canada said Sunday it was "aware of reports" that one of its nationals may have been kidnapped in Syria, amid suggestions it could have been a woman fighting alongside Kurdish forces in Kobane.

The U.S.-based monitoring group SITE said Islamic State jihadists claimed a woman described as a "female Zionist soldier" had been captured in the embattled Syrian border town.

A Canadian citizen was in stable condition at a Saudi Arabian hospital on Saturday after being attacked in a shopping mall in the country's east, police said.

The attack came one week after a Danish citizen was shot and wounded in the kingdom's capital, a rare incident which has not been explained.

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Friday his government would provide support worth hundreds of millions of dollars towards life-saving vaccines for children around the world.

Harper made the announcement at an event with Senegalese Prime Minister Mohammed Dionne at a clinic in Dakar to mark the introduction in Senegal of a vaccine for rotavirus -- a virus that causes diarrhea in children so severe it can be fatal.

Media mogul Pierre Karl Peladeau announced Thursday he will seek the leadership of the Parti Quebecois, the standardbearer of a movement to split the province from the rest of Canada.

Peladeau, 53, made the announcement in a speech to students at the University of Montreal.

Canada's Defense Minister Rob Nicholson announced Wednesday the sending of winter coats, boots and gloves to dress 30,000 Ukrainian soldiers fighting pro-Moscow separatists in east Ukraine.

The shipment is to be flown to Kiev on Thursday, he told a press conference.

A 15-year-old boy who befriended the suspect in the first jihadist attack on Canadian soil was arrested days prior to the killing, local media said Monday.

The daily newspaper La Presse, citing unnamed sources, said the teenager had contacted suspected jihadist Martin Couture-Rouleau on Facebook.

A Conservative campaign worker became the first person in Canada to be jailed for vote fraud Wednesday, landing a blow to Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his ruling party ahead of elections next year.

Michael Sona, 26, who was convicted in August, was sentenced to nine months in prison over a scheme that misdirected Canadian voters to fake polling stations during the last election.