Month: October 2018

A deadly Ebola outbreak grows. Rebels kill civilians in the streets. And yet the arrival of voting machines in this troubled corner of Congo has some especially worried as a long-delayed presidential election promises further upheaval.  The machines now arriving by the thousands in this Central African nation are of such concern that the U.N. …

Read more “As Congo Rolls Toward Election, Voting Machines a Flashpoint”

U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley has called on the Justice Department on Thursday to launch a criminal investigation into one of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s accusers and her lawyer. The Republican lawmaker wants prosecutors to determine if Julie Swetnick and her lawyer, Michael Avenatti, made false statements to Congress last month about …

Read more “US Senator Calls for Probe into Kavanaugh Accuser Swetnick, Her Attorney”

A “chief finance controller” for the al-Qaida-linked al-Shabab extremist group has been killed in an ambush on a meeting of its fighters in southern Somalia, the African Union peacekeeping mission announced Thursday.   The unnamed commander, the head of tax collection in Lower Shabelle region, was killed Monday in  Bariire, the AU mission said.  The extremist group funds …

Read more “AU Force Says Key Al-Shabab Commander Killed “

Saudi Arabia’s public prosecutor has said the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the kingdom’s consulate in Istanbul was premeditated, reversing previous official statements that his death was unintended. …

Russia has successfully launched an unmanned Soyuz rocket, the first such liftoff since an aborted launch of a similar rocket earlier this month. …

U.S. national-security adviser John Bolton says that he extended an invitation from President Donald Trump for Russian leader Vladimir Putin to visit Washington in 2019. …

The head of a U.N. fact-finding mission in Myanmar warned Wednesday that if atrocities committed against minority Muslim Rohingya in that country went unpunished, such crimes would be repeated in other countries on new victims. “Impunity must not be excused and continue to embolden the Tatmadaw in its promotion of Bamar-Buddhist supremacy,” the head of the …

Read more “UN Official Urges Justice for Myanmar’s Rohingya”

The wife of a prominent Iranian teachers union leader said Wednesday that Iranian security forces had detained her husband and hospitalized him for a purported mental illness that she knew nothing about.   Hashem Khastar, a unionist representing teachers in Iran’s northeastern Razavi Khorasan province, was the latest of several education activists to be detained in Iran this year while promoting teachers’ rights to …

Read more “Another Activist Detained in Iran’s Crackdown on Teachers Unions”

The leader of a Southern California white supremacist group and two other members were arrested on charges of inciting a deadly riot in Charlottesville, Va., last year, prosecutors said Wednesday.  Other group members were indicted in Virginia on similar charges weeks ago.  Rise Above Movement leader Robert Rundo was arrested Sunday at Los Angeles International Airport and …

Read more “White Supremacists Arrested on Charlottesville Riot Charges”

The European Union’s top court turned away an appeal by Dmytro Firtash, the latest twist for the Ukrainian oligarch whose extradition from Austria the United States has been fighting for since his 2014 arrest in Vienna. …

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that, if the United States deploys intermediate-range missiles in Europe, Moscow will have to target the countries hosting them. …

Former Polish President Lech Walesa tells RFE/RL that global “solidarity” is the best way to deal with Russia. …

Hurricane Willa began losing power overnight after roaring over a stretch of beach towns, fishing villages and farms on the Pacific coast of Mexico’s Sinaloa state as a Category 3 storm. Damage assessments were scanty during the night because of darkness and poor communications, but federal officials said power had been knocked out in some …

Read more “Hurricane Willa Moves Inland After Hitting Mexico Coast”

The Russian news agency Interfax is reporting that a researcher at Russia’s Antarctic station has stabbed and injured a colleague in an apparent emotional breakdown. …

Los Angeles Dodgers manager Dave Roberts played the percentages Tuesday night with his team down by one run to the Boston Red Sox in the seventh inning of the opening game of this year’s Major League Baseball World Series. He saw two runners on base, a right-handed pitcher on the mound and the Red Sox …

Read more “Nuñez Home Run Leads Red Sox to World Series Game One Win”

White House national-security adviser John Bolton says he told top officials in Moscow that Russian meddling in U.S. elections had backfired and that should provide a lesson to the Kremlin: “Don’t mess with American elections.” …