Frances Martel - Page 166

The State Department confirmed on Friday that they have received complaints from private U.S. citizens who have traveled to Cuba of similar symptoms to those documented in American diplomats affected by unexplained “attacks” reportedly caused by sonic weapons.

Turkey has frozen non-immigrant visa services for U.S. citizens, mirroring a U.S. announcement of the same policy Sunday in response to the arrest this week of a U.S. consulate worker in Istanbul for alleged ties to Islamic cleric Fethullah Gulen.

The government of Turkey announced Friday that it will open its first cultural center in Latin America in Caracas, Venezuela, following a visit by that nation’s dictator, Nicolás Maduro, to Ankara for talks on economic and national security issues.

The Communist Party of China is boasting of over 100 smartphone applications designed to allow senior party members to more accurately track their underlings’ loyalty, based in part on how much communist propaganda the individual consumes on the app.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi appeared to extend an olive branch to the breakaway Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in remarks in Paris on Thursday, urging Kurdish Peshmerga military forces to “work together” with Baghdad’s army.

Brazil arrested the head of the Brazilian Olympic Committee (COB), Carlos Arthur Nuzman, and his right-hand man Leonardo Gryner on Thursday after a corruption probe found evidence the COB paid $2 million to secure a vote in favor of Rio de Janeiro hosting the 2016 Summer Olympics.

Venezuela’s dictator Nicolás Maduro will visit Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday and Friday, attending a meeting of the Turkey-Venezuela Business Forum shortly after reportedly seeking to restructure billions in Russian debt held by his failed state.

State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert told reporters Tuesday that the agency’s lawyers “would certainly … be looking at” the possibility that, in failing to prevent physical attacks on American diplomats and their families, Cuba may have violated the 1961 Vienna Convention.

Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez declared there is “no evidence” that American diplomats have suffered acoustic attacks, leaving them with hearing loss and brain damage, at a press conference Tuesday responding to the expulsion of 15 Cuban diplomats from U.S. soil.

An NGO operating in Venezuela has updated their count of political prisoners in the country to 439, days after Luisa Ortega Díaz, the nation’s former prosecutor general, accused the socialist regime of systematic torture and “the annihilation of the justice system.”

In a statement Tuesday, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson confirmed that the United States has expelled 15 Cuban officials from the communist nation’s embassy in Washington, D.C., in response to attacks on nearly two dozen Americans working in Havana.

North Korea’s state newspaper Rodong Sinmun has published the results of an alleged white paper by a government agency that found that President Donald Trump was “hell-bent on inflicting a nuclear holocaust” and claiming that he is referred to in America as “Hitler in the 21st century.”

Chinese President Xi Jinping told reporters while meeting Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in Beijing last week that he expects President Donald Trump’s visit to the country to be “special” and “wonderful,” an outpouring of positive sentiment at odds with the consistent criticism of the United States in communist state media.

Brazil’s Health Minister told reporters last week that his nation’s judiciary has seen “around 150” lawsuits by Cuban doctors forced to work for negligible salaries in Brazil, the pawn’s in an elaborate for-profit enterprise that nets the communist Castro regime millions of dollars a year.

Communist Cuban diplomats and state media outlets condemned the United States this week for withdrawing a significant percentage of its embassy staff from the island after a series of unexplained sonic attacks injured at least 21 diplomats and family members since November 2016.

U.S. State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert rejected a proposal from Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan to trade wrongfully detained American pastor Andrew Brunson for Islamic cleric Fethullah Gulen on Thursday, asserting the Trump administration was placing its efforts of bringing Brunson home.

Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported this week that some Uighur Muslims in China’s westernmost province of Xinjiang have accused the police of confiscating their Qurans, claiming the seminal Islamic text contains “extremist content.”

North Korea’s state newspaper claimed on Friday that nearly five million citizens “volunteered to join or rejoin in the Korean People’s Army” in the past week, looking to fight against President Donald Trump.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson announced Friday that America would withdraw all “non-emergency personnel” from the U.S. embassy in Cuba and all family members following months of unexplained attacks on American diplomats that have left some with hearing loss and, reportedly, brain damage.

Following Kurdistan’s overwhelming vote in favor of seceding from Iraq on Monday, Baghdad’s parliament announced a series of measures intended to prevent their independence, including deploying Iraqi troops to Kurdish Peshmerga held areas.

Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdogan offered to free American pastor Andrew Brunson, imprisoned for allegedly spreading both pro-Kurdish propaganda and supporting Islamic cleric Fethullah Gulen despite being a Christian, in exchange for Gulen himself on Thursday.

North Korea, through its media outlet the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), denied on Thursday that it tortured late American Otto Warmbier during his time in prison, dismissing Warmbier as a “criminal” and American President Donald Trump as an “old lunatic” for accusing Pyongyang of torturing and killing him.

The Assembly of Cuban Resistance, a coalition of nearly 50 anti-communist, pro-democracy groups, urged President Donald Trump in a letter published Tuesday to close the U.S. Embassy in Havana and its Cuban counterpart in Washington following a spate of sonic attacks that have left dozens of American diplomats with significant injuries.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced on Twitter this week that Baghdad would seek full control of all airports, land crossings, and oil revenues under the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) by Friday, threatening to seize them if Erbil does not comply with the order.

The Marxist terrorist organization FARC–recently relaunched as a political party–has failed to meet the requirements of a peace deal signed in Cuba with the government of Colombia, the U.S. ambassador to that country asserted this week.

Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza addressed the United Nations General Assembly Monday after dictator Nicolás Maduro claimed to be “too busy” for the event, delivering a tirade against U.S. President Donald Trump and accusing America of being “the worst violator of human rights” worldwide.

The government of Nigeria has once again made the claim that the Islamic State affiliate Boko Haram no longer has the ability to freely operate in the nation’s northeast, as its courts prepare to be overwhelmed with over 1,600 cases against individual members of the jihadist group.

Over 90 percent of the three million voters in the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) of Iraq voted to secede from Iraq and establish an independent Kurdistan Monday, in an election widely heralded as free and fair.

South Korea’s defense minister assured legislators this week that his government would complete the creation and training of a “decapitation brigade” to attack North Korea if necessary by the end of the year. While Seoul has referenced the plan in the past, officials appear to be expediting it in response to North Korea’s latest nuclear test.

The government of Turkey confirmed this week that it had signed a deal to purchase a Russian S-400 missile system, alarming other fellow NATO members who discourage such military deals with Moscow.

U.S. State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert raised the number of Americans injured by unknown acoustic “incidents” while working for the department in Cuba to 21 on Tuesday, warning that doctors may continue to diagnose more.

Diego Arria, once Venezuela’s ambassador to the United Nations and a former UN Security Council president, returned to the global organization Monday to condemn the “unprecedented” situation his nation is experiencing, under a tyranny he defined as run by “drug traffickers and criminals.”

North Korea’s ambassador to the United Nations railed against the latest sanctions passed by the Security Council on Monday, which cut off part of the nation’s oil industry and bans North Korean citizens who have not defected from working abroad.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan confirmed to reporters this weekend that he expects to meet with his American counterpart Donald Trump in person during next week’s United Nation’s General Assembly.

Venezuela’s socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro met Sunday with prominent Middle East presidents Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey and Hassan Rouhani of Iran this weekend, seeking support amid a global outcry against his regime.

North Korea’s foreign ministry threatened the United States with “the greatest pain and suffering it had ever gone through in its entire history” on Monday, the 16th anniversary of the Al Qaeda attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon in 2001.