Category: World

President Vladimir Putin has awarded Russian citizenship to former cycling world champion Shane Perkins of Australia, according to a decree published by the Kremlin on August 17. …

The events in Charlottesville, Virginia, Saturday stirred a long simmering debate about Confederate statues, with many people demanding their removal and many arguing history should not be erased. The Charlottesville protests centered around Emancipation Park, where there is a statue honoring Confederate general Robert E. Lee. White supremacists say the reason they wanted to hold …

Read more “Confederate Statues Explained: Why and When They Rose”

Thousands of Russian volunteer fighters helped Vladimir Putin create a proxy army to foment conflict in Ukraine. In return, many say Putin has given them nothing. …

They’re muscular, fit, and in much better physical shape than most people. They’re competitive body builders, and many of them in the U.S. are women, something that was evident at a recent Washington-area competition called the OCB Presidential Cup. At that event, three-quarters of the competitors were women. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi hit the gym and …

Read more “Wonder Women of Bodybuilding: Getting Pumped Up About Weightlifting”

From the sky over occupied Europe to an elephants stable in India and to its final resting place in an air museum in England, this was the 100-year journey for one of the world’s first strategic bombers. And the last part was the most astonishing because the planes’ remains, found in India, were almost beyond …

Read more “From Elephants Stable to Air Museum: Strategic Bombers Restored”

Iraq has asked the United Nations to assist it with gathering evidence of possible “crimes against humanity” committed by the Islamic State (IS) extremist group. …

U.S. President Donald Trump will meet on August 18 with his national security advisers at the Camp David presidential retreat to discuss U.S. strategy in Afghanistan and South Asia, the White House has said. …

British Prime Minister Theresa May said on Wednesday there was no equivalence between fascists and those who opposed them, a rare rebuke of U.S. President Donald Trump by one of his closest foreign allies. Trump inflamed tensions after a deadly rally of white supremacists in Charlottesville, Virginia, by insisting that counter-protesters were also to blame, …

Read more “In Rare Rebuke of Trump, UK’s May Says Leaders Must Condemn Far-Right Views”

Zambian opposition leader Hakainde Hichilema called on the government to free several members of his party who are still being detained over various charges hours after he was released from prison on Wednesday. The state prosecutor dropped charges against him of plotting to overthrow the government. Hichilema and five others were arrested in April and …

Read more “Zambian Opposition Leader Calls on Government to Free Detained Party Members”

Leaders of a New York Episcopal diocese say they’ll remove two plaques honoring Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee from a church property in Brooklyn. Bishop Lawrence Provenzano, leader of the Episcopal Diocese of Long Island, told Newsday the two plaques outside St. John’s Episcopal Church are being removed Wednesday. The United Daughters of the Confederacy …

Read more “NYC Church to Remove 2 Plaques Honoring Robert E. Lee”

The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect the views of RFE/RL. …

Several times each year, the huge and troubled AvtoVAZ car factory in Tolyatti closes down and sends its 37,000 workers on forced vacation. Workers say their vacation allowances are so small that they must scramble to make ends meet during the idle time. …

Afghan police have discovered mass graves containing the bodies of at least 36 victims of a recent militant attack on a village, officials have said. …

Former Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has filed petitions with the country’s Supreme Court challenging his disqualification from office over undeclared assets. …

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

The United States accused Islamic State insurgents on Tuesday of carrying out a reign of violence targeting religious minorities and opposition ethnic groups, even as they have been losing control of large swaths of territory in Iraq and Syria. U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Islamic State “is clearly responsible for genocide … and …

Read more “US: Islamic State Has Committed ‘Genocide’ Against Religious Believers”

At least 300 people are confirmed dead a day after mudslides and heavy flooding struck Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone. Authorities say they expect the death toll to rise as search teams, military personnel and distraught relatives continue digging through the mud, looking for people buried or swept away in the disaster. Kelvin Lewis, …

Read more “Death Toll Passes 300 in Flood-Stricken Sierra Leone Capital”

Five-times Grand Slam winner Maria Sharapova has been awarded a wild card to play in this year’s U.S. Open tennis tournament. …

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has condemned the “harassment” of reporters in Ukraine after security services raided the offices of an independent news website and a member of parliament criticized the head of the national press union for his response to the raid. …

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence met Monday with refugees who fled the chaos in Venezuela for the safety of a church in Cartagena, Colombia. “The president ( Trump ) sent me here with a message of compassion for those families that are fleeing Venezuela,” Pence told reporters. “We are with them. We stand with them …

Read more “Pence Meets with Venezuelans Seeking Refuge in Colombian Church”

The posters advertising this past Saturday’s protest in Charlottesville, Virginia promised to “Unite the Right.” The slogan acknowledges that white nationalist groups who oppose the removal of the statue of Civil War General Robert E. Lee from a park in the college town have different agendas and priorities. Here is a look at some of …

Read more “Who Were the Groups Protesting in Charlottesville?”

The former head of Mexico’s state-owned oil company, a key campaign adviser to President Enrique Pena Nieto, has denied accusations that he took bribes from Brazilian construction company Odebrecht.   Emilio Lozoya said Sunday via Twitter that he was never corrupt and suggested the allegations were made by executives seeking to reduce their own sentences …

Read more “Ex-head of Mexico’s State Oil Company Denies Taking Bribes”

Russian authorities say they have thwarted terrorist attacks directed by the extremist group Islamic State (IS) in Syria. …

Powerful Libyan military commander Khalifa Haftar has met with Russia’s foreign and defense ministers in Moscow. …