worldwide news
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”
The top U.S. military commander has warned against pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal, saying doing so would complicate U.S. efforts to reach agreements with other nations. …
Hungary has pledged to block Ukraine’s further integration with Europe after Kyiv enacted a controversial education law that critics say will restrict the study of minority languages in schools. …
Georgian lawmakers have given final approval to draft constitutional amendments that would shift the government to a parliamentary-style system, with the president elected by lawmakers. …
Inside the Woodridge Neighborhood Library in the U.S. capital, a wall is plastered with ominous warning signs: “Reading This Book Display Is Banned” and “No Books to See Here.” Below the messages are shelves with books that have been banned, at one time or another, in parts of the United States. They include books in …
Read more “Banned Books Week in US Emphasizes Freedom to Read”
Turkey’s state-run news agency says a court in Istanbul has ordered a columnist for Turkey’s main opposition newspaper released from prison pending the conclusion of his trial. Anadolu Agency reported that the court released Cumhuriyet columnist Kadri Gursel from pre-trial detention on Monday. Anadolu says the court ruled that four other newspaper employees, including …
Read more “Turkish Court Frees 1 Journalist from Prison, Orders 4 Held”
Margarita Aponte and her relatives cleared the road in front of her house with two oxen, then drove an hour from her devastated hometown in central Puerto Rico to the old telegraph building in the capital of San Juan. There, thousands of Puerto Ricans gathered for a chance at a resource nearly as precious as …
Read more “Puerto Ricans Hunt for Precious Wi-Fi and Cell Signals”
A singer from Chechnya who disappeared last month has purportedly turned up in Germany, though the evidence for this claim embraced by state media in the southern Russian region is raising more questions about his whereabouts. …
The White House has denied an assertion by North Korea’s foreign minister that the United States declared war on it, calling the claim “absurd.” …
Envoys of the Russia-backed separatists in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region have opened up a new representative office in the southern French city of Marseille. …
As lawmakers propose banning the sale of shark fins in the U.S., a pair of scientists is pushing back, saying the effort might actually harm attempts to conserve the marine predators. Democratic Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey introduced a bill this year designed to prevent people from possessing or selling shark fins in America, …
Read more “Shark Fin Bans Might Not Help Sharks, Scientists Say”
Our Lady of Angels Church has survived several major earthquakes, but Tuesday’s magnitude 7.1 shake proved to be the final death knell for the Mexico City building’s historic cupola. Violent cracks crisscrossed the dome, and stone from the roof continued to fall onto the church’s wooden pews. On Sunday evening, the cupola split and …
Read more “Mexico Quake Leaves Country’s Historic Churches Battered”
In his dark suit, Thai junta leader Prayuth Chan-ocha cut an incongruous figure guiding a rice tractor across a muddy paddy field in front of cameras and watching villagers. The prime minister’s latest photo opportunity won applause from farmers watching in straw hats and his visit to Suphan Buri on Monday brought a call from …
Read more “Thai Junta Leader, Backers Fuel Suspicions of Plans to Stay in Power”