John Hayward - Page 174

A grenade was thrown into a mosque in the southern Philippines early Wednesday morning, killing two Muslim clerics. Four people were reportedly wounded in the blast. The mosque attack came three days after multiple bombs were detonated at a Catholic cathedral in the same region, killing 21 people.

A Venezuelan opposition lawmaker named José Guerra posted images on Tuesday evening that purportedly capture government workers loading tons of gold bars onto a Russian aircraft for transport out of Venezuela.

Iranian Vice President Eshaq Jahangiri visited Syria with a delegation of businessmen on Monday and Tuesday to discuss reconstruction deals with the Assad regime as Syria’s bloody eight-year civil war winds down.

According to a South Korean media report on Tuesday, North Korea has not only rejected a U.S. court ruling in the death of Otto Warmbier, but it also refused to take delivery of the paperwork sent to Pyongyang using the DHL courier service.

National Security Advisor John Bolton caused a stir in both Washington and Caracas on Monday by getting himself photographed with a notepad that read, “Afghanistan -> Welcome the talks. 5,000 troops to Colombia.”

China sentenced a man named Luo Ping to six years in jail on Monday for pretending to be a doctor and sexually assaulting a sedated female patient.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau fired his ambassador to China, John McCallum, on Saturday over remarks McCallum made about the arrest and possible extradition of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou.

British officials, particularly those in the town of Salisbury, are appalled by the release of a Russian board game that mocks the attempt to poison former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia with the Novichok nerve agent last year.

China took center stage in the debate over the ethics of genetic engineering with the revelation that scientist He Jiankui edited the genes of human embryos to make them immune to HIV.

Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro on Thursday ordered the Venezuelan embassy and all of its consulates in the United States to close, recalling all diplomatic personnel from America by Saturday.

Two U.S. warships passed through the Taiwan Strait on Thursday in a Freedom of Navigation Patrol (FONOP). The passage was taken by Taiwan as a heartening show of American support, and by China as an annoying challenge to its military might and territorial integrity.

Leyla Guven, a Turkish parliamentarian from the pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP), has been imprisoned for over a year and engaged in a hunger strike for the past 77 days.

Turkey’s authoritarian President Recep Tayyip Erdogan expressed his support for semi-deposed Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro on Wednesday and Thursday. Erdogan supporters, and even some of his critics, enthusiastically followed his lead and pushed their #WeAreMADURO hashtag to the top of trending topics on Twitter.

Amnesty International on Thursday declared 2018 a “Year of Shame” for Iran because it arrested over 7,000 dissidents, sent hundreds of them to prison, physically abused the prisoners, and killed at least 26 of them.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Thursday announced a $20 million package of humanitarian aid for Venezuela in response to a request from Juan Guaidó, recognized by the United States and several major South American nations as the acting president of the country.

North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un on Thursday expressed “great satisfaction” with the “good personal letter” he received from President Donald Trump, praised Trump’s “unusual determination and will” to achieve denuclearization, and ordered preparations to begin for a second U.S.-North Korea summit.

Russia staged a presentation of the SSC-8 land-based cruise missile for foreign observers on Wednesday, insisting the weapon does not violate the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) as the United States alleges.

President Trump spoke out Tuesday against the media assault on the Covington Catholic High School students, leaping into a Culture War melee after many establishment conservatives either backed away from the fight or actively supported the false narrative pushed by left-wing media.

The case pressed by the Chinese government against He Jiankui, the scientist who stunned biologists and alarmed the medical community by claiming he modified the DNA of unborn children, came into sharper focus on Tuesday with allegations He used fake blood samples to slip his project past review boards.

The Justice Department on Tuesday announced the arrest of three Lansing, Michigan, residents who are charged with conspiracy to provide material support to the Islamic State.

The Philippine island of Mindanao held a referendum on Monday to establish an autonomous region that would be governed by the largely Muslim residents.

On Monday, just hours after Chinese authorities confirmed the birth of twin girls whose DNA was purportedly edited by scientist He Jiankui, the university that employed Jiankui announced his termination.

Canada’s ambassador to the United States, David McNaughton, said in an interview on Monday that the United States will proceed with its extradition request for Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou.

A report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and its Beyond Parallel project asserted on Monday that North Korea has “approximately 20 undeclared missile operating bases,” one of which is described in detail by the authors.

Data released by the Chinese government on Monday showed the economy growing at the slowest pace since 1990, but Chinese media took the slow growth as evidence of the Chinese economy’s “resilience” in the face of the U.S. trade war, presumably on the theory that it could have been much worse.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) met with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara on Friday in what Graham described as an effort to defuse tensions between Turkey and the United States regarding the Syrian Kurds.

Chinese authorities answered one of the lingering questions in the case of rogue scientist He Jiankui on Monday by confirming the twin girls he claims to have genetically edited as embryos were born and are currently under medical supervision.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in on Monday urged the United States to pursue diplomacy with North Korea, promising his country would provide all possible assistance to the second summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and U.S. President Donald Trump.

The new version of the U.S. missile defense strategy released by the Pentagon and introduced by President Donald Trump on Thursday states that North Korea remains an “extraordinary threat” along with Iran, Russia, and China.

A Fox News exclusive report on Thursday claimed Russia may have deployed ballistic missiles within 270 miles of the Ukrainian border. The Iskander missiles captured by satellite photographs have sufficient range to reach Ukrainian territory and are capable of carrying both conventional and nuclear warheads.

The White House announced on Friday afternoon that President Donald Trump met for an hour and a half with North Korean envoy Kim Yong-chol to “discuss denuclearization and a second summit, which will take place near the end of February.”

China is taking advantage of waivers from Iran sanctions granted by the United States to pitch a $3 billion oil field development to Iran, even as European nations are halting their purchases of Iranian crude.

Analysts at 38 North on Wednesday reviewed evidence of extensive construction at the Wonsan-Kalma resort, possibly indicating North Korea expects sanctions to end, engagement with the outside world to increase, and tourism to boom.

Cybersecurity researcher Troy Hunt on Thursday announced the discovery of a gigantic trove of pilfered usernames and addresses for email accounts from a variety of services, quite possibly representing the largest breach of account information in history.

The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), a think tank linked to the Communist government, issued a report this month declaring that many of the world’s largest companies are using “incorrect labels” for Taiwan and Hong Kong, by which CASS means describing them as anything but territories of China.

Hopes that 2019 might be the year Japan and Russia finally put World War II to bed were dealt a setback on Thursday when the Japanese Foreign Ministry formally protested Russia’s “unacceptable” detention of two Japanese boats that were fishing near the contested Kuril Islands.