National Security

On May 11th, Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan accepted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s offer to send “a team of Israeli counter-terrorism experts to assist in the ongoing search and rescue operations of the girls abducted by Boko Haram.” Approximately 200 girls

In April, Islamist militants that were part of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) tried and failed to abduct a Central Intelligence Agency officer and U.S. Special Ops commando while they were at a barbershop in Sana’a, Yemen’s Capital

LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) — A new video from Nigeria’s Boko Haram terrorist network purports to show dozens of abducted schoolgirls, covered in jihab and praying in Arabic. It is the first public sight of the girls since more than 300

The entire world is focused on the captured Nigerian girls, many scenarios have been envisioned–and yet there is at least one issue no one has raised: That it is entirely possible that these poor girls have also been genitally mutilated.

NEW DELHI (AP) — Millions of Indian voters wrapped up the country’s mammoth national election Monday, braving the searing sun on the final day of polling in which a Hindu nationalist opposition candidate is seen as the front-runner for prime

BAGHDAD (AP) — Militants in Iraq launched an audacious attack on a military barracks in a remote area in the country’s north and killed 20 troops overnight, including some who had been bound and shot at close range, authorities said

The Kyiv Post reported many voting violations during Luhansk Oblast’s independence referendum from Ukraine. In Luhansk, people found no electoral rolls, and armed men reportedly received a jump in line. “Warriors vote without queuing,” a woman reportedly shouted, as three

Sometimes big geopolitical news gets tucked away in a mere clause. We can see this phenomenon in, for example, a recent AFP story on the Nigerian terror-kidnaping: “World powers, including the United States and China, have joined in the search

DONETSK, Ukraine (AP) — Pro-Russian insurgents in eastern Ukraine say preliminary results of a contentious referendum show nearly 90 percent of voters have supported sovereignty for their region. Roman Lyagin, election chief of the self-styled Donetsk People’s Republic, said around

Gunmen identifying as members of Ukraine’s National Guard opened fire on a group of voters in Krasnoarmeisk in Donetsk Oblast. The people were voting in a referendum on the sovereignty of the “Donetsk People’s Republic” (DPR) before the Guard gunmen

The pro-Russian forces behind the “Donetsk People’s Republic” (DPR) said the official results of east Ukraine’s referendum will be available on Monday and that is when the group will decide its next steps. Roman Lyagin, DPR central election committee head,

During a May 11th appearance on ABC’s This Week, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel said the military’s ban on transgender individuals “continually should be reviewed.” The Assocated Press reports Hagel did not take a position on whether the ban should

Pressed by dozens of lawmakers from both parties in 2012 to putgreater focus on growing violence by Boko Haram, the Islamistmilitant group that recently kidnapped 200 teenage girls inNigeria, the State Department sent something akin to a formletter in reply.

French poet Charles Baudelaire once observed, “The finest trick of the devil is to persuade you that he does not exist.” That trick was not working from May 5-10 in Rome at the Pontifical Athenaeum “Regina Apostolorum,” an educational institution

CNN is still failing at geography. On Sunday, the network placed east Ukraine all the way into Pakistan. Something pro-Ukrainian unity supporters & pro-#Russia separatists can agree on: Eastern #Ukraine is not in Pakistan. pic.twitter.com/3r58mf1FkJ — Lily Lynch (@lilyslynch) May

VIENNA (AP) — Bearded drag queen Conchita Wurst made a triumphant return to Austria on Sunday after winning the Eurovision Song Contest in what the country’s president called a victory for tolerance in Europe. Wurst was greeted at Vienna airport

Representative Michele Bachmann (R-MN) told Candy Crowley on CNN’s “State of the Union” that “more could’ve been done” to prevent the kidnapping of almost 300 girls in Nigeria by radical Islam terrorist group Boko Haram. “The earlier we push against

It is referendum day in east Ukraine for the self-proclaimed “Donetsk People’s Republic.” The West and Ukraine claimed the referendum is illegal and neither will recognize the vote. Russian President Vladimir Putin even asked the pro-Russian forces to delay the

The Department of Veterans Affairs still issues a monthly pension payment to 84-year-old Irene Triplett, for her father’s service in the Union Army during the Civil War. Triplett is “the last child of any Civil War veteran still on the

A woman used a pocket knife to fight off a huge Burmese python which attacked her dog while out walking in a Hong Kong country park, a report said Sunday. Courtney Link told the Sunday Morning Post the five-metre (16-foot)

Israel’s army on Sunday declared part of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights a closed military zone, fearing battles on the Syrian side would spill over the ceasefire line. An army spokeswoman told AFP the area around the Quneitra crossing was closed

Iran will not accept “nuclear apartheid” but is willing to offer more transparency over its atomic activities, President Hassan Rouhani said Sunday ahead of new talks with world powers. Iran and the P5+1 group of nations will start hammering out

French President Francois Hollande on Sunday denounced separatist votes by pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine as “null and void”. On a visit to the ex-Soviet republic of Azerbaijan, Hollande said the votes taking place in Donetsk and Lugansk made “no