worldwide news
Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambaev lashed out at lawmakers who have alleged he was connected to the cargo of a plane that crashed in January, and voiced support for a legislator who said parliament should be dissolved. …
Chinese authorities have shut down activist Ye Haiyan’s blogs and forced her to move from one city to another. Left with few options, she now produces socially conscious paintings to make a living and advocate for the rights of sex workers and people with HIV or AIDS. Using calligraphy brushes, Ye creates images of naked …
Read more “China’s Congress Meeting Brings Crackdown on Critics”
Russian opposition leader Aleksei Navalny faced a series of obstacles when opening his election campaign headquarters in the Volga River city of Nizhny Novgorod on March 6. …
Ukraine has had to build up an entire industry from scratch since the start of the conflict with Russia-backed separatists: the design and manufacture of military drones. (Current Time TV) …
Russian opposition political activist and anticorruption campaigner Aleksei Navalny said that, if elected president, he would support more self-rule for the semiautonomous Tatarstan region. Speaking in an interview with RFE/RL’s Tatar-Bashkir Service in Kazan, the Tatar capital, Navalny said on March 5 that Russian President Vladimir Putin has been gradually limiting powers previously given to …
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has warned visiting Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev that Israel is working to weaken ties between the two countries. …
Kyrgyzstan’s opposition Ata-Meken (Fatherland) party has named its detained leader Omurbek Tekebaev as the party’s candidate for the November presidential election in the country. …
“We can’t sleep at night because it’s hard to breath and our eyes are watering,” says Yunis Mohammad Hassan, a father of three, outside his Mosul home in the Noor area. On Tuesday, a bomb hit his neighbor’s house releasing rancid-smelling white smoke, sickening the family and people in the surrounding area. It was one …
Read more “15 Hospitalized as Details of Alleged Mosul Chemical Attack Emerge”
A look at the best news photos from around the world. …
On the dusty streets of Burkina Faso’s capital Ouagadougou soldiers searched visitors to the pan-African Fespaco film festival on Thursday night after they’d emptied their pockets and passed through a metal detector. Close by a soldier manned a heavy machinegun mounted to the back of a military pick-up. Other international events in West Africa, including …
Read more “Burkina Faso Film Festival Fespaco Defies Islamist Menace”
U.K. officials say Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson will visit Russia in the coming weeks, but they said he would not drop his tough line on Moscow’s involvement in Syria and Ukraine. …
President Donald Trump has made headlines with his swift action on immigration and vows to deport those living in the U.S. illegally who have a criminal past. Now any immigrant charged or convicted of any offense, or even suspected of a crime, has become an enforcement priority for federal authorities. The stricter policy has brought …
Syrian state media say government troops have gained ground and widened their control over villages formerly held by Islamic State (IS) militants in the northern part of the country. …
The U.S. budget director has confirmed that the Trump administration will propose “fairly dramatic” reductions in U.S. foreign aid when it submits its fiscal 2018 budget later this month. …
Thirteen boxes of emails from Vice President Mike Pence’s term as Indiana governor have been turned over to state government, about two months after an earlier attempt didn’t work, a spokesman said. Attorneys for Pence delivered the emails Thursday to be archived for public review as required under Indiana law, The Indianapolis Star reported. The …
Read more “Emails From Pence’s Time as Governor Delivered in Indiana”
Syrian news reports say government forces pressed forward Saturday in pursuit of Islamic State extremists in northern Syria, gaining control of 15 more villages near the Turkish border and slowing a rival push against IS fighters by Turkish-backed Syrian rebels. Monitors from the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the Syrian offensive, launched after last …
Read more “Syrian Army Presses Offensive Against IS Near Turkish Border”
National parks traveler Mikah Meyer says visiting Everglades National Park in southern Florida was like stepping back in time. Time standing still “It’s this huge section of [protected] land … it takes up the entire southwestern corner of Florida and essentially before human interaction, everything south of Orlando looked like the Everglades.” Join Mikah …
Read more “Nature Plays Starring Role in Florida Everglades”
Unless new antibiotics are developed quickly, people will once again die from common infections. The World Health Organization on Feb. 27 issued an urgent call for scientists to develop these new drugs, and for governments to fund the research. VOA’s Carol Pearson reports. …
Art lovers from around the world descend on New York City every March for several art fairs. One of the longest running and most popular fairs is the Armory Show, which hosts more than 200 galleries from 30 countries. For visitors, who are expected to reach 65,000 this year, the Armory Show cements New York …
Read more “Galleries Worldwide Showcase Artists at New York’s Armory Show”
The European Union’s foreign policy chief was met with booing and pro-Russia chants in the Serbian parliament when she called for integrating the Western Balkans into the European bloc on March 3. …
U.S. warplanes launched over 30 air strikes in Yemen this week in a sustained assault on Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the Pentagon said on March 3. …
Iran already is negotiating to buy cruise missiles from Russia and is likely to make other major weapons purchases when a UN ban on selling Iran sophisticated weapons expires in 2020, a U.S. intelligence report finds. …
Ukraine’s tax and customs service chief has been suspended from his post amid a graft investigation that marks a rare attempt to prosecute a senior official on suspicion of corruption. …
Senior Taliban officials say a suspected American drone strike has killed a key Taliban commander who told captured U.S. Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl “Don’t come back to Afghanistan” moments before releasing him to the U.S. military in a prisoner swap three years ago. The U.S. military, however, told VOA Friday, “Neither U.S. forces Afghanistan nor …