In late December, it will be one year since Moscow detained U.S. citizen Paul Whelan on espionage charges. During his 11 months in the infamous Lefortovo prison, Whelan has denied the allegations and complained of systematic mistreatment. His family in …
Iran has extended a major shutdown of internet access into a seventh day to suppress domestic opposition to the government, prompting the United States to sanction the Iranian official overseeing the outage. The #Iran internet shutdown is now in its …
About 250 Islamic State fighters have surrendered to Afghan security forces in eastern Nangarhar province, a traditional IS stronghold. Dozens of women and children have surrendered as well. Officials told VOA they would work toward deradicalizing those of Afghan origin and eventually …
China and Pakistan urged the United States on Friday “to sift fact from fiction” before questioning their bilateral infrastructure development program, which Beijing is funding under its global Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The reaction came a day after a senior …
Tens of thousands of people in Pakistan’s eastern city of Lahore are at risk of respiratory disease because of poor air quality related to thick smog hanging over the region, an international rights group said Friday. Amnesty International …
Pope Francis Friday called on bishops in Thailand to keep their doors open for priests and to spread the faith as their missionary predecessors did. “Be close to your priests, listen to them and seek to accompany them in every …
A Hong Kong court on Friday suspended its decision to strike down a government ban on wearing face masks at protests, allowing police to enforce the decree for another week around keenly contested local elections in the semi-autonomous Chinese territory. …
Pope Francis paid tribute Friday to Catholics in Thailand who suffered or were killed for their faith in the past and urged today’s Thais not to consider Christianity a “foreign” religion. The pope was on his last full day of …
Tesla CEO Elon Musk is taking on the workhorse heavy pickup truck market with his latest electric vehicle. The “cybertruck,” an electric pickup truck, will be in production in 2021, Musk said at the Los Angeles Auto Show Thursday. The …
The U.S. Army is undertaking a security assessment of China-owned social media platform TikTok after a Democratic lawmaker raised national security concerns over the app’s handling of user data, Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy said Thursday. Speaking to reporters at an …
It wasn’t until she became a high school senior that Kayla Ireland had another black person as a teacher in Waterbury, a former manufacturing hub where the students are mostly minorities and the educators are generally white. The imbalance never …
A major Internet outage in Iran aimed at suppressing anti-government protests has extended into a 5th day, with access levels rising slightly as authorities said they reconnected several regions to the web. Real-time technical data corroborate reports in #Iran news …
Three agencies in charge of resettling refugees in the U.S. are suing the Trump administration over the president’s executive order allowing states and cities to block refugees from being settled in their areas. The lawsuit was filed Thursday …
A former White House official on Thursday will call on some lawmakers investigating impeachment of U.S. President Donald Trump not to perpetuate the “alternative narrative” that Ukraine, not Russia, interfered in the 2016 U.S. election, according to her prepared remarks. …
One of the sons of Egypt’s former autocratic President Hosni Mubarak says his 78-year-old mother and former first lady is in hospital. Alaa Mubarak tweeted late Wednesday that Suzanne Mubarak was in intensive care but didn’t elaborate on her illness. …
South Korean startups are banking on their country’s similarities with Vietnam — a shared popular obsession with education, similar rituals, a history of a divisive civil war, and a current focus on manufacturing and integration with international trade — to …
With urban populations surging around the world, cities will struggle to keep residents safe from fast-growing heat risks turbo-charged by climate change, scientists and public health experts warned this week. Heat is already the leading cause of deaths from extreme …
President Donald Trump said on Wednesday after touring a plant that assembles Apple Inc computers that he was considering whether to exempt the U.S. company from tariffs on imports from China. “We’re looking at that,” Trump said in answer to …
The Iranian government’s reaction to protests against a gas price hike has been turning increasingly deadly. Security forces have reportedly opened fire at protesters in various cities across the country. Here is a look at the recent developments that triggered …
The reviews are biting: “mind-numbingly dull,” “a huge dud” and “a frickin’ joke.” Yet they’re coming from an unusual place — Fox News Channel personalities talking about the programming that their network has spent hours televising over the past week. …
A new survey shows about one in four Europeans holding anti-Semitic beliefs, with such attitudes on the rise in eastern countries and mostly steady in the west. The poll of 14 European countries released Thursday by the New York-based Anti-Defamation …
Germany sought Wednesday to ease French worries about NATO by offering to set up a group of experts to examine the alliance’s security challenges after President Emmanuel Macron lamented the “brain death” of the military organization. Macron’s public criticism of …
Contrary to Pyongyang’s belief that nuclear weapons and missile programs safeguard its security and ensure its survival, experts said they make the country less safe because they leave it prone to U.S. military targets. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un …
In 1990, a bikini-clad Madonna wrapped in a U.S. flag urged MTV viewers to vote in Senate elections as the youth television network partnered with a “Rock the Vote” campaign that mixed pop culture and politics. Thirty years on, with …