In what was received as a pleasant surprise by the European Union, Greece made its first 460 million euro payment to the IMF this week. The Mediterranean country continues to struggle with generating enough revenue to pay off their multi-billion-dollar debt, and one major international player looking to capitalize on their need for business is China.
Last week, the White House promised that President Barack Obama would engage in an “interaction” with Cuban dictator Raúl Castro at the Summit of the Americas. The summit begins officially Friday, and more details have surfaced on what that interaction will entail: the two leaders, who shared a phone conversation Thursday night, will share the stage at the summit Friday.
Senior Kenyan police official Pius Masai Mwachi has become the target of national disgust this week after implying that victims of the Garissa University terror attack that left 148 dead had not fought back sufficiently against the Al-Shabaab terrorists storming the campus. “Free yourself as soon as possible. Get out. Don’t just be killed like cockroaches,” he said.
Spanish police arrested eleven people in a terror raid in Catalonia this week, including one Paraguayan minor believed to be preparing to attack Spain and working with jihadist groups, including the Islamic State.
A group of Cuban dissidents invited to attend events at this weekend’s Summit of the Americas were insulted and physically assaulted by a swarm of dozens of communist Cuban officials and supporters in Panama on Wednesday.
After years of campaigning for ancient artifacts to be returned from foreign museums to the nations where they were found, archaeologists and museum officials are rethinking the concept of “repatriation”–particularly in Iraq and Syria, where the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) has made destruction of historical artifacts a priority.
The Summit of the Americas begins tomorrow, but the presence of dictatorships at the table with the rest of the Western Hemisphere’s democratic nations has already begun to cause havoc. On Wednesday, representatives of the socialist governments of Venezuela and Cuba walked out of the pre-Summit Forum on Civil Society due to the presence of pro-democracy activists.
The Chinese government has begun to vocally express its desire for an end to violence in Yemen, after an evacuation out of war-torn Aden that many contend has elevated China’s role as a player in the Middle East. While officially condemning neither the Houthi rebels’ coup attempt nor the Saudi-led Arab coalition’s intervention, China’s long-standing ties with Iran indicate China’s weight will fall on the side of the Shiites.
Nearly a week has passed since the deadly jihadist attack on Kenya’s Garissa University that killed at least 148, and students who watched their colleagues being slaughtered now say they will never step foot in the city again, with some even renouncing higher education entirely and vowing to live as farmers.
The government of Greece’s Radical Left Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has been demanding Germany pay reparations to the nation for damage committed by the Nazis during World War II for months, but now they have officially calculated a fixed amount they would like back: 279 billion euros.
The Chinese government has announced a widespread crackdown on golf–both the practice of it by senior officials, which is a sign of potential “corruption” on their part, and the construction of golf courses, which has been illegal since 2004.
The voter registration error is a bizarre one. Had the New York Times not uncovered it, it wouldn’t have helped or harmed his presidential hopes. Unlike Elizabeth Warren’s use of Native American identity on job applications, there appears to be no visible benefit to the eldest Bush son save his own amusement (and that of his family, apparently). This usurpation has been going on for years.
A group of an estimated 20 Boko Haram terrorists attacked a northeastern Nigerian village on Sunday night after gathering Muslims during evening prayers, claiming to be preachers, and bombing the village’s mosque while shooting anyone in sight. The attack differs from many as the Islamist group tends to target Christian populations.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan arrived in Tehran this morning to discuss economic and political negotiations with Iran. Once close allies, Erdogan’s visit arrives a week after the president declared that Iran’s meddling in Yemen “has begun annoying us,” and accused the Islamic Republic of attempting to “dominate the region.”
Reuters reports today that President Barack Obama is preparing to “act quickly” upon the State Department’s recommendation regarding whether Cuba will remain on its State Sponsors of Terrorism list. Cuba, which has for decades aiding Marxist terror groups like the FARC and ETA, has demanded their status be amended as a condition of reestablishing diplomatic relations with the United States.
A group of around 30 taxi drivers from northern China traveled to Beijing and drank pesticide in the middle of a mall, collapsing and frothing at the mouth during peak shopping hours on Saturday.
American officials have confirmed that President Barack Obama will engage Cuban dictator Raúl Castro in an unspecified “interaction” at this week’s Summit of the Americas.
Authorities have begun to piece together the planning and execution of last week’s bloody terrorist attack on Kenya’s Garissa University. Among the slain Al Shabaab gunmen– whose bodies remain publicly displayed in the town– is believed to be a university security guard and the son of a Kenyan public official.
A Spanish mother was sentenced to prison Thursday for attempting to send her 16-year-old twin sons to Syria to join the Islamic State. The mother, her husband, and two sons were arrested in Barcelona trying to board the boys on a flight to Morocco.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has condemned the “wanton carnage” of the jihadist terror group Boko Haram, noting that, should many of the human rights violations reportedly committed by the group be confirmed, they could be found guilty of crimes against humanity.
The Nigerian people have spoken, and they have elected a former military dictator from the nation’s Muslim north to defeat Boko Haram. President-elect Muhammadu Buhari vowed on Wednesday, in a more extensive second statement on his election victory, to “spare no effort” against the terrorist threat.
The President of the Chamber of Tourism of Venezuela’s Andean state of Mérida has warned tourists hoping to enjoy the state’s mountain vistas over the Easter holiday that they will have to bring their own soap and toilet paper to Mérida’s hotels.
General Muhammadu Buhari has officially won Nigeria’s presidential elections, after running for the chief executive office in 2003, 2007, and 2011, and ruling the country as a military dictator between 1984-1985. In his acceptance speech, Buhari thanked his predecessor, Goodluck Jonathan, for conceding defeat peacefully and congratulated Nigerians for having, like him, “embraced democracy.”
The Venezuelan government is forcing citizens to sign a petition calling for President Obama to remove sanctions on the socialist state for its human rights abuses. Those eager to sign are rewarded with anything from a coveted smaller wait time on supermarket lines to whole chickens, but those who refuse may wind up unemployed.
Islamic State jihadists have released photos on social media of their counterparts in Syria destroying a cemetery by hammering tombs to the ground. The group claims to object to tombs as wrongful worship of the dead, though much of the material was also taken away to use as construction materials.
