worldwide news
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has appointed foreign policy veteran Elliott Abrams to be U.S. envoy to Venezuela, tasked with helping “restore democracy” to the South American nation. Pompeo made the announcement Friday afternoon in Washington, ahead of a special session of the U.N. Security Council on Saturday. Pompeo said Abrams would travel …
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Russia’s athletics federation says it would withdraw its appeal against its ban from international competition. …
Reuters is reporting that private military contractors working on behalf of Russia are in Venezuela to help embattled socialist President Nicolas Maduro strengthen security amid opposition protests and a competing claim to leadership. …
U.S. President Donald Trump says he has come to an agreement with Congressional leaders to reopen the federal government on a short-term basis without the funding he has demanded for a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border. …
U.S. authorities expect to soon hand down a sentence in the case of Maria Butina, the 30-year-old Russian woman now held in a U.S. jail who has pleaded guilty of conspiring to influence American politics, accused of conspiracy and acting as a foreign agent. VOA’s Ricardo Marquina-Montanana traveled to the Siberian city of Barnaul to …
Read more “Maria Butina: Naïve Idealist or Dangerous Conspirator?”
Pope Francis is bringing World Youth Day to Panama’s juvenile delinquents who can’t participate in the Catholic Church’s big festival of faith. On Friday Francis will celebrate a special penitential Mass inside the Las Garzas de Pacora detention center, which is Panama’s main youth lockup. In a twist, he will also hear the inmates’ confessions …
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Sri Lankan rights activists, lawmakers and relatives of slain and disappeared journalists held a vigil over their abductions and killings, demanding the government expedite investigations. Freddie Gamage, an organizer of the vigil Thursday, said that despite being in power for four years, the current government “has miserably failed to fulfill its promise to punish those …
Read more “Sri Lankans Demand Justice for Slain, Missing Journalists”
The Greek parliament is expected to vote January 25 on a historic agreement to normalize relations with neighboring Macedonia. …
Sixteen civilians from the same extended family were killed in an air strike on a home in southern Afghanistan, an Afghan official said on January 24. …
A co-founder of the Afghan Taliban who was released from detention by Pakistan last year has been appointed as the leader of the militant group’s political office in Qatar. …
A court in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv on Thursday found former President Viktor Yanukovych guilty of treason and helping Russia annex the Crimean peninsula. The Kiev court began reading out the verdict in Yanukovych’s case, a process that is expected to take at least the whole day. The judge already declared Yanukovych guilty of treason …
Read more “Ukrainian Court Finds ex-President Guilty of Treason”
Iraq’s parliament on Thursday approved a vastly expanded state budget for 2019, after weeks of wrangling over how to apportion revenue among the country’s regions damaged by the war against the Islamic State group. The new budget, at 133 trillion Iraqi dinars ($112 billion), represents a 27 percent increase in spending over the previous year, …
Read more “Iraqi Parliament Approves Budget of $112 Billion For 2019”
Congo on Thursday was poised to inaugurate an opposition leader as its unexpected new president in the Central African country’s first peaceful, democratic transfer of power since independence nearly 60 years ago. The 55-year-old Felix Tshisekedi , son of the late opposition icon Etienne, will be sworn into office at the Peoples’ Palace, the seat …
Read more “Congo Poised to Inaugurate New President From Opposition”
The European Union is taking action against Austria for tying the value of child benefits to the cost of living in the country where those children reside, saying it discriminates against EU citizens working in Austria. …
U.S. officials have held talks with Taliban envoys in Qatar for a fourth day, the militants said, as the two sides pursue a potential deal to bring an end to Afghanistan’s 17-year conflict. …
Pakistan’s Supreme Court will decide on January 29 whether to allow an appeal against its acquittal of a Christian woman at the center of a blasphemy row, a lawyer for the woman has said. …
A Russian prosecutor has asked a court to sentence a Danish man to 6 1/2 years in prison for his affiliation with the Jehovah’s Witnesses, the U.S.-based denomination deemed by Russia to be extremist. …
Cardi B will have her first Last Vegas residency this spring. Palms Casino Resort announced Wednesday the 26-year-old singer’s appearance as part of its debut of KAOS, a dayclub and nightclub amphitheater-style complex that is set to open in April. Above and Beyond, G-EAZY, Kaskade and Skrillex are among the other artists who will have …
The United States has officially recognized Juan Guaido as Venezuela’s interim leader after the opposition politician declared himself president during a day of mass demonstrations in the South American country. “Today, I am officially recognizing the President of the Venezuelan National Assembly, Juan Guaido, as the Interim President of Venezuela,” President Donald Trump said in …
Read more “Trump Recognizes Venezuelan Opposition Leader as Interim President”
President Donald Trump says he looks forward to delivering his State of the Union address in the House chamber on January 29, despite being strongly discouraged from doing so by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. “There are no security concerns regarding the State of the Union Address. Therefore I will be honoring your invitation and fulfilling …
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Iranian activist Reza Khandan, the husband of a jailed prominent human rights lawyer, has been sentenced to six years in prison, his lawyer and local media say. …
A Chechen court has ruled in favor of writing off more than $100 million in gas debt over fears of possible “social unrest.” Gazprom is challenging it. Will other regions follow suit? …
Consumer activist Erin Brockovich, who famously took on Pacific Gas & Electric Co. in the 1990s, urged California lawmakers Tuesday not to let the utility go bankrupt because it could mean less money for wildfire victims. “I’m mad, I think we should all be mad,” Brockovich said as she stood outside the Capitol in Sacramento …
Read more “Activist Urges California Leaders to Halt PG&E Bankruptcy”
Kaye Ballard, the boisterous comedian and singer who appeared in Broadway musicals and nightclubs from New York to Las Vegas and starred with Eve Arden in the 1960s TV sitcom “The Mothers-In-Law,” has died. She was 93. Ballard died Monday night at her home in Rancho Mirage, California, after a fight with kidney cancer, her …
Read more “Kaye Ballard, Boisterous Singer and Actress, Dies at 93”