Month: September 2017

A Pakistani rights group has called for the release of the Turkish former director of the PakTurk chain of private schools who it said was “abducted” in Pakistan’s eastern city of Lahore. …

Moscow says Russian and North Korean diplomats will meet in Moscow on September 29 to discuss the Korean crisis. …

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has called on Ukrainian authorities to release Uzbek journalist Narzullo Okhunjonov from detention, allow him to remain in Ukraine, and reject any request to extradite him. …

Giant pandas Cai Tao and Hu Chun arrived Thursday to fanfare in Indonesia where a new “palace” like home that cost millions of dollars has been built for them. The male and female pair landed at Jakarta’s international airport from Chengdu and will be quarantined at Taman Safari zoo outside the capital for about a …

Read more “Pair of Giant Pandas From China Welcomed in Indonesia”

Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha says his predecessor, Yingluck Shinawatra, is in Dubai. The prime minister revealed Yingluck’s whereabouts Thursday during a meeting with journalists, citing a report from the foreign ministry of her movements. Her brother, former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, has lived in exile in Dubai since he was overthrown in a 2006 …

Read more “Ex-Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra Living in Dubai”

The women working at ABC Toys on the second floor of a nondescript office building in Mexico City’s working-class Obrera neighborhood drew so little attention to themselves that when the building collapsed in last week’s powerful quake few living nearby could recall them. In death, they remained nearly as anonymous: Government officials identified them in …

Read more “Migrant Quest for Mexican Dream Cut Short in Quake”

Russian Internet “trolls” are exploiting a controversy over protests against police violence by black American football players to stir up divisions in the United States, a senator on the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee said on September 27. …

Russian opposition leader Alexsei Navalny said St. Petersburg authorities have repeatedly refused his request for a place to meet with supporters in the city center on October 7. …

Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in Ankara on September 28 for talks set to touch on Syria and Iraq. …

CBS says “60 Minutes” has landed the first television interview with House Majority Whip Steve Scalise since he was shot at a congressional baseball team practice in June.   The network said Wednesday that Scalise will speak to Norah O’Donnell for the news magazine’s episode this Sunday.   He’ll recount the attack from his vantage …

Read more “Recovering Congressman Steve Scalise Talks to CBS ’60 Minutes’”

Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi is demanding that this week’s referendum on independence for the autonomous Kurdish region be annulled. …

A British banker convicted last year for the gruesome murders of two Indonesian women is planning to appeal his life sentence. The lawyer for Rurik Jutting says a hearing on his client’s appeal has been scheduled for December 12. A jury found Jutting guilty of the 2014 murders of Sumarti Ningsih and Seneng Mujiasih in …

Read more “British Banker Convicted of Double Murder in Hong Kong to Appeal”

A fire caused a series of explosions at an ammunition depot in central Ukraine, leading to evacuations of the surrounding area. (RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service and Current Time TV). …

Russia is forecasting a dramatic decrease in the number of working-age citizens over the coming years, a fall that could stymie a return to growth after a deep two-year recession. …

International police agency Interpol voted Wednesday to include Palestine as a member state, in a new boost to Palestinian efforts for international recognition and influence amid long-stalled negotiations with Israel for full statehood. Interpol announced the inclusion of the “State of Palestine” as well as the Solomon Islands on Twitter and its website Wednesday after …

Read more “Interpol Approves Palestinian Membership; new Blow to Israel”

The United States has imposed sanctions on eight North Korean banks and 26 bank executives amid escalating tensions with Pyongyang over its nuclear program. “This further advances our strategy to fully isolate North Korea in order to achieve our broader objectives of a peaceful and denuclearized Korean Peninsula,” U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Tuesday …

Read more “US Imposes Sanctions on 8 N. Korean Banks, 26 Executives”

Kumari Behera carefully folds a set of heavy brown jute sacks, stacking them in a corner of her small, windowless shack. Splashed with water every two hours and arrayed on her tin roof, they have served as her air conditioning this summer — the only option available to cool her home in the face of …

Read more “Armed with Wet Sacks, India’s Poorest Try to Beat Extreme Heat”

Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen acknowledged Tuesday that the Fed is puzzled by the persistence of unusually low inflation and that it might have to adjust the timing of its interest rate policies accordingly. Speaking to a conference of economists, Yellen touched upon key questions the Fed is confronting as it tries to determine why …

Read more “Yellen: Fed Is Perplexed by Chronically Low Inflation”