In an early morning ambush, Islamic terrorists of the radical al-Shabaab group attacked an African Union military base in southern Somalia Friday, breaching the walls by exploding a car bomb and overrunning the base. According to the officials of the
Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour has been named the leader of the Taliban as the terrorist organization grapples with peace negotiations-related infighting that has triggered defections to the growing Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) group.
Mullah Mansour is reportedly not well liked by some high-ranking Taliban commanders.
Javad Zarif, the Foreign Minister of the Islamic Republic of Iran, called on Friday for world powers to unilaterally dismantle their nuclear weapons, while specifically demanding that Israel also follow suit.
“Gay” emojis may be banned in Russia if the government finds that they violate the country’s infamous “gay propaganda” law.
The Yezidis are holding worldwide rallies and Memorial Services tomorrow in Oldenberg, Germany; on August 2nd in Lalish, Iraq (the Yezidi spiritual heartland), and in France; and on August 3rd in Geneva, Armenia, Berlin, and in cities in Sweden, Turkey, Iraq, Syria, and the United States (Lincoln, Nebraska; Houston, Texas; and perhaps Buffalo, New York).
According to official data, the average cost of foodstuffs in Russia increased by 14.3 percent in the first half of this year, largely because of the embargo of Western products. In late June, Putin announced his decision to extend the embargo on perishable food products from the European Union for one year, in response to the extension of the sanctions taken by Brussels against Moscow for its role in the crisis in Ukraine.
When former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee raised the specter of the Holocaust in his evaluation of President Obama’s Iran deal, he touched a raw nerve because Huckabee got it right: The Holocaust taught us that evil is not satiated after it consumes Jews. A deal that is catastrophic for Israel is also catastrophic for the United States.
The government of Sierra Leone has quarantined 624 people in the past week following the death by Ebola of a man in a town that had not experienced any cases of the deadly virus in months. While the outbreak continues with little natural end in sight, however, scientists have announced a breakthrough vaccine development that could eradicate Ebola for good.
Chinese officials in Wenzhou, a city of the Zhejiang province with a high concentration of Christians, have given Christian communities a deadline to remove rooftop crosses from their churches, but some of the local pastors have responded with defiance, placing guards at their churches to defend the crosses.
One of the world’s most active volcanos is threatening to derail the nascent investigation of debris that may belong to missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 on remote Reunion Island. Investigators have been forced to flee as Le Piton de la Fournaise begins to erupt, covering the search area in ash.
WASHINGTON (AP) — After billions of dollars spent and more than 10,000 extremist fighters killed, the Islamic State group is fundamentally no weaker than it was when the U.S.-led bombing campaign began a year ago, American intelligence agencies have concluded.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has consistently opposed the Iranian nuclear deal that President Barack Obama has championed, told diplomatic correspondents that an American public increasingly aware of the deal’s dangers is growing more hostile to the agreement.
United Nations — Move over: The world’s population is expected to reach 8.5 billion by 2030 and 9.7 billion in 2050, a new United Nations report says. And there should be 11.2 billion people on Earth by the end of this century.
RIO DE JANEIRO — Athletes competing in next year’s Summer Olympics here will be swimming and boating in waters so contaminated with human feces that they risk becoming violently ill and unable to compete in the games, an Associated Press
If Obama and his supporters are so concerned about comments that portray the president as an antisemite, he should stop trying to act like one. At the very least, it shows he knows he cannot defend the Iran deal on its merits.
Father Joseph Zhang Yinlin will be ordained Bishop of Anyang, Henan Province, on August 4, becoming the first Chinese bishop ordained publicly in three years and the first after the Vatican and China reopened dialogue in June 2014.
Contents: Thousands of migrants in Calais France causing Eurotunnel crisis; Britain’s PM Cameron’s ‘swarm of migrants’ remarks causing outrage; Number of lone children migrants to Britain soaring
SAINT-ANDRE, Reunion (AP) — After 16 agonizing months without answers, loved ones of those on board Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 will likely have to wait at least another day for confirmation that it crashed into the sea, as investigators work
According to South Korean sources for the Korea Times, Yemeni rebels have attacked Saudi Arabian targets with missiles purchased from North Korea.
Yemen’s internationally-recognized president has decreed that armed groups fighting against Shiite Houthi rebels in Yemen merge with his national army units in an apparent effort to bring ground forces on his side together.
No scene of political turmoil is complete until somebody gets investigated by prosecutors. Such is the fate of former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis, who has become a darling of the anti-austerity, hardcore left ever since he departed his office on the eve of the 11th-hour bailout deal.
Turkey Foreign Ministry Undersecretary Feridun Sinirlioğlu visited Kurdistan Regional Government President Masoud Barzani to discuss Turkey’s plan with the United States to defeat the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL). The talks took place in Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan.
A matter of days after 54 American-trained moderate Syrian Rebel Army fighters reported for duty, the New York Times reports that the commander of the unit plus seven of his fighters—including his second-in-command—have been kidnapped by the Nusra Front, an al-Qaeda franchise, while they were returning from a meeting in Turkey.
Samir Kuntar, a Hezbollah commander who became a hero in the Middle East after allegedly murdering a 4-year-old Israeli Jewish girl, has reportedly been killed in an Israeli Air Force strike on his position in Syria.
On Wednesday, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras floated the idea of calling for early elections in Greece to “bolster a parliamentary majority that has been strained by bailout reforms demanded by creditors,” as Reuters put it. Such is the chaos of end-state socialism in Greece that Tsipras really needs his own party to lose in those early elections. The Syriza party is coming unglued over the austerity components of Greece’s latest bailout package.
The Afghan national police and army forces are experiencing a decrease in their capability to fight the Taliban less than a year after they took the lead of combat operations from the U.S. military, reports a watchdog agency appointed by Congress.
