Category: World

President Donald Trump and his officials persist in promoting the discredited notion that suspected terrorists are pouring into the U.S. from Mexico by the thousands. Despite their portrayal of Mexico as a teeming portal for terrorists, the State Department issued a report in September finding “no credible evidence indicating that international terrorist groups have established …

Read more “AP Fact Check: Trump’s Myth of Terrorist Tide from Mexico”

Jim Yong Kim has abruptly resigned as president the World Bank, more than three years ahead of schedule. …

The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) is to be granted access Russia’s anti-doping laboratory in Moscow this week to retrieve data it had earlier been denied. …

Four Ukrainian citizens have been killed after a cargo ship sank off Turkey’s Black Sea coast, Kyiv’s envoy to Ankara said. …

The trade group behind the Consumer Electronics Show set to start the Tuesday forecast that US gadget love will grow despite trust and privacy issues hammering the tech world. The Consumer Technology Association (CTA) predicted that US retail revenue in the sector would climb to a record high $398 billion this year. “There are so …

Read more “US Gadget Love Forecast to Grow Despite Trust Issues”

A hog evidently tossed into the ocean from China washed up on New Year’s Eve along Kinmen, an outlying Taiwanese-held islet. Local agricultural inspectors later tested the carcass positive for African swine flu, an infectious disease that has led to the slaughter of some 600,000 pigs in China. Dispose the animal and move on? Not …

Read more “How a Dead Pig Is Further Soiling China-Taiwan Relations”

Golden Globes co-host Sandra Oh said she was afraid to take the job of co-hosting this year’s show with Andy Samberg, but she took it anyway.  “I said yes to the fear of being on this stage tonight because I wanted to be here to look out at his audience and witness this moment of …

Read more “‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ Wins Top Nod At Golden Globes”

Orthodox Christians celebrated Christmas on January 7 as adherents gathered in Moscow, Bethlehem, Jerusalem, Cairo, and cities throughout the world to usher in the holy day. …

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan are planning to meet “soon” to discuss the announced departure of U.S. troops from Syria, where both countries also have a strong military presence. …

The whereabouts of six Russian sailors abducted by pirates in the dangerous waters off the West African coast are still unknown, Russian officials say. …

The United States has said its decision to withdraw all U.S. troops from Syria was conditional on Turkey ensuring the safety of Kurds in Syria, U.S. national-security adviser John Bolton has said. …

The Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople on Sunday presented a decree of independence to the Metropolitan bishop of the nascent Orthodox Church of Ukraine. In Istanbul, Patriarch Bartholomew I presented the Tomos, a scroll containing the decree, in a symbolic ceremony sanctifying the Ukrainian church’s independence from the Russian Orthodox Church. He signed the decree a …

Read more “Independence Decree Presented to Ukrainian Orthodox Bishop”

The Iranian Central Bank has proposed a currency reform that would remove four zeros from the rial, Iranian state media have reported. …

Two women who made history in India’s southern Kerala state by entering one of Hinduism’s holiest temples that barred women between the ages of 10 and 50 have been staying in hiding but say they are not fearful of reprisals. Bindu Ammini, a law lecturer and Kanaka Durga, a government employee, defied the hundreds of …

Read more “Indian Women Who Defied Protestors to Enter Temple in Hiding”

President Donald Trump’s national security advisor says the U.S. will not abruptly withdraw its military from Syria. John Bolton said Sunday, during a visit to Israel, the military pull out depends on defeating the Islamic State terrorist group. Bolton said Trump “wants the ISIS caliphate destroyed.” The security advisor also said the U.S. wants assurances …

Read more “US Security Advisor: US Withdrawal From Syria Conditional”

About 30 people have been killed by a tunnel collapse at a gold mine in northeastern Afghanistan, officials say. …

The federal agency tasked with guaranteeing U.S. airport security is acknowledging an increase in the number of its employees calling off work during the partial government shutdown. The Transportation Security Administration said in a Friday tweet that call outs that began over the holiday period are on the rise but the impact has been “minimal.” …

Read more “Airports Seeing Rise in Security Screeners Calling off Work”

Security officials say Yemen’s Shiite rebels and government forces are shelling each other in areas south of Hodeida, straining an already shaky cease-fire in the Red Sea port city. They said each side blamed the other for Saturday’s shelling, and that both were reinforcing their forces in the city in violation of the U.N.-brokered truce …

Read more “Yemen’s War Rivals Exchange Artillery Fire Around Port City”

Every January, tech insiders head to Las Vegas, Nevada where the biggest tech companies show off their latest devices at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES). Smaller start-ups also vie for attention at one of the largest tech gatherings of the year. Tina Trinh meets with a Brooklyn startup as they prepare to head west. …

Tehran has approved an anti-money-laundering bill, local media reported, in a move that is seen as a major step toward reforms that would bring Iran into line with global norms and could facilitate foreign trade in the face of U.S sanctions. …

Afghan special forces have rescued 12 people from a Taliban prison in the country’s south on the same day that the militants kidnapped a group of 15 government employees in the west, officials said. …

At a ceremony in Istanbul on January 5, the spiritual leader of Orthodox Christianity, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople signed a decree granting autocephaly, or independence, to the Orthodox Church in Ukraine. …

NASA has called off the planned visit of Dimitry Rogozin, the chief of Russia’s space agency who is subject to U.S. and European Union sanctions, following critical press reports and calls by U.S. lawmakers to cancel the visit. …

The Supreme Court is plunging back into the issue of whether electoral districts can be too partisan. Disputes have arisen in cases involving North Carolina’s heavily Republican congressional map and a Democratic congressional district in Maryland, and the justices said Friday they will hear arguments in March. The high court could come out with the …

Read more “US Supreme Court to Take New Look at Partisan Electoral Districts”