U.S. President Donald Trump has said in an interview that he and Russian President Vladimir Putin “get along very, very well” and that the two had “an excellent meeting” on the sidelines of last week’s Group of 20 meeting in Germany. …

The detention of an Iranian medical researcher with a valid visa has made headlines, but numerous reports of his connections to Iran’s notorious Basij force has some approving of the U.S. ban on his entry to the country. …

U.S. President Donald Trump called his son “open, transparent, and innocent” after the release of e-mails indicating the younger man had welcomed an alleged offer from Russia to help his father’s 2016 presidential campaign. …

Indonesia’s president has signed a decree giving the government the power to ban radical organizations, in a move aimed at outlawing groups behind an apparent rise in the political clout of hard-line Islam. The measure announced Wednesday by the country’s top security minister follows months of sectarian tensions in the world’s most populous Muslim nation …

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Donald Trump Jr. says that his meeting with a Russian lawyer did not yield anything useful to his father’s presidential campaign and he never told his father about it. …

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was scheduled to fly to Jeddah Wednesday from Kuwait City where, despite temperatures above 50 degrees Celsius, he scored a first tentative victory for cool diplomacy in his push to resolve the month-long blockade of Qatar by its Persian Gulf neighbors. VOA’s Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine has more on …

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Environmentalists promote solar energy as an option to reduce pollution, but in places without a central electricity supply solar panels can be a practical solution. They are frequently used by nomads moving through the desert, and people living in remote villages. In recent years solar panels have come to serve as a source of energy …

Read more “Solar Panels Have Become Major Source of Energy in Ravaged Syrian Communities”

The Trump administration has removed Moscow-based Kaspersky Lab from two lists of approved vendors used by government agencies to purchase technology equipment, amid concerns the cybersecurity firm’s products could be used by the Kremlin to gain entry into U.S. networks. …

A senior U.S. general has said that the fight is “far from over” in Iraq despite the recapture of Mosul from Islamic State (IS) militants, and he sees no major reduction in U.S. troop numbers after the fall of the city. …

A U.S. Army soldier who served in Iraq and Afghanistan has been arrested on charges of providing material support to Islamic State extremists, the Federal Bureau of Investigation said on July 10. …

A Kazakh citizen who was sentenced to 10 years in prison in Russia after being convicted of plotting to kill President Vladimir Putin has reportedly asked for clemency. …

Armenia’s Golden Apricot international film festival has run into controversy as rights activists accuse organizers of censorship for scrapping part of the event that featured two films dealing with LGBT themes. …

Pentagon officials say they have no information to confirm reports that Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is dead. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported Tuesday it has information confirming the death of the IS leader. “We learned of it today but we do not know when he died or how,” the monitoring …

Read more “Pentagon Officials: No Confirmation of Reports IS Leader Is Dead”

Austria’s foreign minister convened dozens of counterparts on Tuesday to overcome what he calls a “crisis of confidence” hobbling the work of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.   A forum born of Cold War attempts to ease disputes through compromise, the OSCE must reach decisions by consensus. However, regional and international rivalries …

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British Prime Minister Theresa May said Tuesday that she has to win a “battle of ideas” in Parliament and the country after losing her majority in last month’s election. In a speech both conciliatory and defiant, May urged her political opponents to contribute their “views and ideas” to help shape government policy. May spoke nearly …

Read more “Weakened UK Leader Theresa May Vows to Win ‘Battle of Ideas’”

The U.N.-backed Cambodian tribunal trying Khmer Rouge leaders for atrocities committed while they ruled the country acknowledged Monday that only a handful of former high-ranking officials will face justice for their crimes. The tribunal explained in a statement the dismissal in February of a case against Im Chaem, a middle-ranking Khmer Rouge district chief whom …

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Severe food crises are growing in Kenya and Somalia, as the Horn of Africa continues to receive below-normal rainfall, according to the Famine Early Warning Systems Network. The hunger-tracking group says 2.9 million people in Kenya and 3.2 million in Somalia are experiencing Phase 3 or higher on the network’s five-tier warning scale, with Phase …

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Irish low-cost airline Ryanair has canceled plans to start flying to destinations in Ukraine, saying the main airport in the capital, Kyiv, had not honored terms agreed earlier this year. …