Category: World

A Russian court has rejected an appeal by Russian opposition politician Aleksei Navalny against a 30-day jail term that was handed to him for organizing nationwide protests against President Vladimir Putin. …

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) is holding a hearing on May 23 in the case concerning the 2008 armed conflict between Georgia and Russia and its aftermath. …

South Africa’s investigation into the influential Gupta family has cut a wide swath through the country.The family, which fled South Africa earlier this year, stands accused of high-level corruption going up all the way to the office of former President Jacob Zuma. But their business activities in poor communities have also left deep wounds, residents …

Read more “Gupta Family Flight Hangs Over South African Mine”

Senior Trump administration officials warned Congress on Tuesday of ongoing efforts by Russia to interfere in the 2018 midterm congressional elections as the federal government prepares to hand out $380 million in election security funding to states. At a briefing attended by 40 or more members of the 435-member U.S. House of Representatives, the heads …

Read more “US Officials Warn Congress on Election Hacking Threats”

A look at the best news photos from around the world. …

A former adviser to U.S. President Donald Trump, Steve Bannon, said that NATO countries need to start paying more to protect themselves against Russia, though he added that China is the biggest threat. …

Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg says that “we weren’t prepared enough for coordinated misinformation operations” during the 2016 U.S. presidential election campaign, but “since then we have made significant investments to protect the integrity of elections by making these kinds of attacks much harder to do on Facebook.” Zuckerberg spoke on May 22 to …

Read more “Zuckerberg: ‘We Have Made Significant Investments To Protect The Integrity Of Elections’”

Steve Bannon, a former senior adviser to U.S. President Donald Trump, told an audience in Prague that NATO countries in Europe need to start paying more to protect themselves from Russia and stop being a “protectorate” of the United States. Speaking at a forum sponsored by a Czech defense contractor on May 22, Bannon said …

Read more “Bannon: ‘If Europe Is So Worried About Russia, Pay Up’”

The Syrian government denied on Monday it had entered an agreement with Islamic State to evacuate the last of the militant group’s fighters from one last area of resistance in southern Damascus. Syrian state media denied it had reached a deal with IS militants, and declared that its control of Al-Hajr al-Aswad and Yarmouk Camp …

Read more “Syria Denies Deal With IS to Evacuate Fighters”

An upcoming report from the Justice Department’s internal watchdog is expected to criticize senior FBI leaders for not moving quickly enough to review a trove of Hillary Clinton emails discovered late in the 2016 campaign, according to people familiar with the findings. The FBI’s timing has been a sore point for Clinton supporters, who say …

Read more “Watchdog Report to Fault FBI for Clinton Probe Delay”

The death toll from a plane crash in Cuba last week rose to 111 on Monday as one of the three survivors, 23-year-old Grettel Landrove, died in a Havana hospital, Cuban state-run media said. The two other survivors, also women, remain in critical condition due to severe burns and other trauma, the director of the …

Read more “Cuba Plane Crash Death Toll Rises to 111 as One Survivor Dies”

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has called for Russia to withdraw its troops from breakaway regions in Georgia while also pledging deeper security and economic support for Tbilisi. …

The Syrian military said it has taken an enclave in Damascus from Islamic State (IS) militants that gives it full control of the capital for the first time since the civil war began in 2011. …

More than 800 people have been poisoned after eating toxic wild mushrooms across western Iran, local media report. …

The candidate of Moldova’s pro-Moscow Socialist Party, Ion Ceban, has won the first round of the snap election for mayor in Moldova’s capital, Chisinau, with almost 41 percent of the vote, followed by Andrei Nastase, the candidate of the pro-European party Dignity and Truth Platform (DA), who garnered just over 31 percent. …

Mourners packed a mosque in Stafford, Texas, about 59 kilometers away from the mass school shooting Friday that killed 10 people. One of the victims was a Pakistani exchange student who wanted to learn about the American culture and share her own. VOA’s Elizabeth Lee reports from her funeral. …

Drivers can choose from several GPS apps that can alert them to accidents or slow traffic so they can avoid them. But bike riders – who travel the same roadways as cars – are on their own. So an English university student designed an app to help cyclists report dangerous hot spots to other cyclists, …

Read more “New GPS Technology Offers Help For Old School Transportation”

“Dirty” Russian money is undermining Britain’s efforts to stand up to the Kremlin and supports President Vladimir Putin’s campaign “to subvert the international rules-based system,” a parliamentary report says. …

An overflow crowd of hundreds of people attended the funeral in Texas of Sabika Sheikh, the Pakistani exchange student killed in the May 18 mass shooting at a high school. …

Voters in Moldova’s main cities of Chisinau and Balti are heading to the polls to elect their mayors for one year. …

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is heading to the Black Sea resort of Sochi to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin on May 21 to discuss ways to strengthen the two countries’ “privileged strategic” relationship. …

A Syrian monitor says Islamic State fighters are being evacuated from the last insurgent enclave near Damascus, a move that will restore state control over the area. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says the evacuation of the fighters and their families from Yarmuk Palestinian refugee camp began Sunday. Buses were carrying the fighters …

Read more “Monitor: IS Fighters Leave Damascus Enclave”

The Royal United Services Institute recently released a detailed report that looks at the factors that could be contributing to or preventing the radicalization of migrant laborers from Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan in Russia. …

A stream of lava from Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano threatens to block a key Hawaii highway that serves as an escape route for coastal residents as two of 22 fissures had merged. Aerial footage from the U.S. Geological Survey shot on Saturday showed a wide flow of fast-moving lava advancing to the southeast at rates of …

Read more “Lava Fountaining 100 Meters High From Hawaii’s Kilauea”