The Chinese government is preparing a gargantuan $1.1 trillion investment in national infrastructure intended to function as an under-the-radar stimulus for the slowing economy, according to sources speaking off the record to Bloomberg News.
Chinese state newspaper Xinhua has published an extensive article announcing the “People’s War” on terrorism, vowing “to introduce a counter-terrorism law at national level” and crush terrorists “like rats” for acts such as the Xinjiang railway attack last year.
Turkish imam Ahmet Muhsin Tüzer has found an innovative way to reach out to the believers in his and other congregations: forming a rock band, FiRock, to sing the praises of Allah. While Tüzer has played gigs all over the world, one Muslim country has denied him entry– Saudi Arabia, which he calls especially “painful” because of Saudi Arabia’s official status as a Muslim state.
Reports have surfaced that Saudia, Saudi Arabia’s national airlines, will begin segregating men and women on flights after male passengers complained of having other males sitting next to their female relatives. Saudi officials have since denied the report, however.
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro is currently en route to China to ask President Xi Jinping for some much-needed financial assistance in light of an oil crisis that has left a mismanaged and increasingly impoverished Venezuela on the brink of disaster.
Among the more bizarre headlines to surface from the Iraqi warfront against jihadist terror group the Islamic State is the following– a report that an Islamic State encampment was reduced to chaos by a stray donkey the jihadists mistook for an intruding military threat.
Jordanian military pilot 1st Lt. Muadh al-Kasasbeh—who was captured by the Islamic State after his plane crashed while conducting exercises against the terrorist group—has been executed, according to a report from Lebanese news agency Al Mayadeen.
Chikungunya, a virus hailing from Africa and spreading rapidly in the Caribbean and South America earlier this year, may have just become an even bigger problem for Brazil, just as that nation’s summer is set to begin.
Rolando Sarraff Trujillo, a United States spy sentenced to 25 years in prison in Cuba for espionage, would call his parents every day from deep within the Cuban penal system. Then, one day in mid-December, the calls stopped, and President Barack Obama announced that Sarraff was safely on American soil. Since his alleged release, however, his family and friends have not heard from him and are demanding to know whether he is, indeed, free.
Hot off the heels of releasing a guide on how to properly handle sex slaves, the Islamic State (ISIS) has begun distributing a handbook titled Sister’s Role in Jihad, designed to teach women how to properly indoctrinate their children to fully commit to the cause of jihadist terrorism.
Cubans in Havana organized Tuesday in an attempt to engage in a performance art project called “#YoTambienExijo,” or “#ITooDemand,” meant to give a voice to the Cuban people in the upcoming dialogues between Cuba and the United States. Before the performance could occur, however, its organizer, artist Tania Bruguera, disappeared, while a number of prominent dissidents in the capital were detained or placed under house arrest.
The government of North Korea has developed a reputation for lack of subtlety in its attacks on perceived enemies, and in remarks last week regarding the Seth Rogen comedy film The Interview, it crossed a line, calling President Obama a “monkey” and hurling other invective his direction. Now, the nation’s spokesman for Latin America is claiming that the comment could not possibly be a racist one.
As the Islamic State (ISIS) continues attempting to expand its influence in the West, a new report from Spain’s ABC newspaper highlights the terrorist group’s increasing influence with women, as 20% of Spanish nationals captured trying to join the jihad in Syria and Iraq or already actively participating in it are women.
Emboldened by dictator Raúl Castro’s declarations that, thanks to President Obama’s new policy on Cuba, the communists “have really won the war,” a group of Cuban dissidents led by artist Tania Bruguera have organized an anti-government rally in the Plaza de la Revolución in Havana– the heart of the communist government.
While it has mostly disappeared from mainstream media headlines in the United States, the Ebola outbreak in West Africa appears to be no nearer to an end. Liberia, a nation that had proclaimed near-victory against the virus, reported a resurgence of cases near its border with Sierra Leone, but pushed on with a ban on cremation triggered by public demand.
In a breakthrough ceremony for Argentina based on laws meant to prevent the mass killing or abandoning of the seventh child of a family due to superstition, President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner adopted a 21-year-old Jewish man as a national “Godson” this week, the first non-Catholic to receive the bizarre patronage from the South American country.
As Indonesian officials continue to search for missing AirAsia Flight QZ8501, the human toll this mystery is taking on those directly involved is coming to the fore, as families await eagerly news of their loved ones’ fate. Not all who could have taken the flight out of Indonesia were on board, however– and one family of five escaped being on board entirely thanks to a sick grandfather.
A 14-year-old boy who willingly joined the Islamic State managed to escape the terrorist group’s grasp by strapping on an explosive vest and hoping that, by surrendering to Iraqi authorities, he would not be killed.
As one of the nations with the closest relationship to the extremely isolated North Korean government, many have been closely following the reaction of the Chinese government to developments surrounding the hacking of Sony corporate servers. China’s official statements have been limited in their scope, though the state has heavily censored news surrounding the hack and, particularly, accusations that North Korea orchestrated it.
Since it was first identified as a threat in March of this year, the Ebola outbreak in West Africa has taken at least 7,500, according to the latest tally by the World Health Organization.
For years, the socialist government of Venezuela has imposed price controls that appear to artificially– and arbitrarily– make some necessary goods impossible to find while making useless luxuries accessible. Never has the situation been as chaotic as this year, experts say, when the market has been flooded with Canadian pines and barbie dolls, but flour and milk remain luxuries.
President Obama announced last week that the White House would reestablish diplomatic relations with Cuba, while demanding of the communist nation no concessions. Opponents have objected that this negotiation would benefit the Castro regime at the expense of the Cuban people, and that, in freeing the three remaining members of the murderous ‘Cuban Five’ spy ring, President Obama was dishonoring the lives of U.S. citizens.
In yet another sign that the Cuban government has no intention of changing its behavior towards the United States in response to President Obama’s restoration of diplomatic relations with the communist regime, the nation’s head of North American affairs asserted that it was Cuba’s “legitimate right” to harbor criminal fugitives on the island if it so wishes.
The maritime horror that has become a centerpiece of the Cuban experience will continue even after President Obama’s overtures to the communist regime, it appears. According to witnesses aboard, the Cuban government sank a boat attempting to reach American shores
An 18-year-old Brazilian citizen was arrested in Bulgaria after evidence surfaced that the teen, who had arrived in Bulgaria from Spain, was attempting to travel to Turkey and then Syria to join the Islamic State and wage jihad in the region.
