The premier of the Australian state of New South Wales State has initiated a national discussion on the inviolability of the Catholic “seal of confession” following a Royal Commission recommendation that priests be required to divulge any sexual abuse of children heard in the confessional.
A number of Israeli websites were hacked Tuesday to display pro-Palestinian messages in what experts said was the start of the annual cyberattack by the hacker collective known as “Anonymous.”
A TV poll Tuesday indicated that the Likud party is gaining public support, despite Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s flip-flop on an asylum seeker resettlement deal with the UN’s refugee agency.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees on Tuesday expressed “disappointment” at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to scrap an agreement on resettling thousands of African migrants following tough domestic criticism, and urged him to “reconsider” it.
TEL AVIV – A Kuwaiti government daily published an article slamming the “March of the Return” in Gaza as a “provocative” protest designed to trigger violence by “terrorist” group Hamas, which uses women and children as human shields. The article also praised President Donald Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and move the U.S. embassy as being “courageous and correct.”
A veteran forcibly removed from a military retirement ceremony two years ago filed a lawsuit Monday against the Air Force claiming that the military violated his First Amendment rights.
A Christian family of four in southwestern Pakistan were murdered by Islamic State militants on Monday in the latest attack on the persecuted religious minority.
The United States is contemplating boosting its military footprint in northern Syria where America’s NATO partner Turkey is on the brink of seizing more territory from U.S.-allied Kurds.
The U.S.-based representative for the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in northern Iraq implored the Trump administration to help the region recover from the crisis it is facing after the military defeat of the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) in an event on Tuesday.
President Donald Trump reaffirmed the United States’ commitment to trade with, security of, and the independence of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia during a Tuesday press conference with those nations’ presidents at the White House.
AFP — The head of the British military facility analysing the Novichok nerve agent used to poison former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter said Tuesday it has “not identified the precise source” of the substance.
North Korea has apologized to the South over an apparent lack of media access during a concert by South Korean musicians “K-Pop” musicians in Pyongyang.
Hong Kong’s democracy movement finds itself at a crossroads four years after the high-water mark of the Umbrella Revolution.
North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un enjoyed attending a concert by popular South Korean musicians this weekend that he took excited photos with the artists and requested they perform a song, which reportedly received the loudest applause of the night, South Korean outlets revealed Tuesday.
The chairman of the Iranian Parliament’s national security and foreign policy committee said this week that the popular messaging application Telegram, widely used by Iranians during the most recent uprisings which began on December 28, is “a security threat.”
Violence and unrest erupted throughout northern and central India on Monday as thousands of Dalits, members of Hinduism’s lowest caste, protested against an order by India’s Supreme Court that weakens legal safeguards put in place for their community in 1989.
In a wide-ranging interview with the Atlantic, Prince Mohammed Bin Salman of Saudi Arabia discussed a variety of issues from women’s rights to his country’s system of absolute monarchy.
A future Saudi king who is speaking of Israel’s right to exist, who is beginning to allow flights to Israel to fly over his territory, who is condemning the funding of terror groups like Hamas and the Muslim brotherhood, and who is speaking openly of Jews living in his land, deserves to be taken seriously and deserves to be engaged.
From a podium in the White House East Room, Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite on Tuesday declared the importance of sometimes having “unpredictable leadership” when seeking leverage on Russia for the defense of the Baltic nations.
China’s Communist Party paper People’s Daily Online published a superficially hilarious critique of democracy on Tuesday in which “experts” complain that “Western political parties are nowadays being kidnapped by votes.” Underneath the shocking revelation that politicians don’t always keep their campaign promises is a more serious critique of democracy as hypocritical, inefficient, and more difficult to purge of corruption than modern Chinese Communism.
An NGO that tracks violence against dissidents in Cuba published a monthly report this week finding that Cuban communist agents committed over 300 political arrests in March, most of short duration, resulting in the repeated arrests of dissidents considered particularly dangerous to the regime.
The Chinese government published a white paper on religious freedom Tuesday in which it insisted that all “religions in China must be Chinese” and that religious leaders must “practice core socialist values, carry forward the fine traditions of the Chinese nation, and actively explore religious thought which conforms to the reality in China.”
Protesters in Brazil have organized street manifestations on Tuesday in anticipation of a final appellate decision on whether former president – and current presidential frontrunner – Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva will have to begin to serve his 12-year prison sentence immediately, effectively cutting off his presidential campaign.
“If we got along with Russia, that would be a good thing, not a bad thing,” he said. “And just about everybody agrees with that, except very stupid people.”
In the wake of a remarkable statement of support for Israel’s right to exist by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, reigning King Salman bin Abdulaziz of Saudi Arabia on Tuesday reaffirmed “the Kingdom’s steadfast position toward the Palestinian issue and the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people to an independent state with Jerusalem as its capital.”
The Chinese government has reaffirmed its intentions to keep an iron grip on religious practice in the country, releasing a new “white paper” Tuesday that excludes yielding any authority over religious activities to foreign entities.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) apparently agrees with President Donald Trump when it comes to China’s unfair trade practices with the United States.
Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa traveled to Beijing this week for a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Mnangagwa thanked Xi for his support, promised to strengthen Zimbabwe’s ties with China, and pledged to implement ‘Xi Jinping Thought’ in Zimbabwe as quickly as possible.
The United States has “enormous leverage” over China that can be used to bend the Chinese government’s trade policies, Gordon Chang, an expert on China and columnist at The Daily Beast, said on Monday’s edition of Breitbart News Tonight in an interview with co-hosts Rebecca Mansour and Joel Pollak.
President Donald Trump may about to throw the Kurds under the bus – and with them, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and American interests in the Middle East.
RIYADH – Saudi King Salman reaffirmed support for Palestinians to US President Donald Trump, state media said Tuesday, after his son and heir apparent said Israel has a “right” to a homeland.
Contents: Israel’s government in turmoil over failure to deport African migrants; Netanyahu: We fell into a ‘trap’ with failed deportation plan
JERUSALEM – Wearing traditional brown robes held in place by a white belt with three knots symbolising vows of “poverty, chastity and obedience”, Franciscan friars have long been a part of Jerusalem’s landscape.
Australia’s Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton says it’s “unquestionable” some white South African farmers are being persecuted and his department is looking into specific cases.
The United Nations migration agency (IOM) has posted an upbeat Easter message celebrating international migration as not only inevitable, but also necessary and “desirable.”
BEIRUT — The most powerful Syrian rebel faction on the fringes of Damascus began abandoning its stronghold in the once rebel-held enclave of eastern Ghouta on Monday, opening the way for government forces to secure full control of the area, after seven years of revolt.
Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sissi has been re-elected for a second term with 97.08 percent of valid votes cast in an election last week, the election authority said Monday.
The Taliban is “increasingly attacking” U.S.-NATO troops and their Afghan counterparts with high-tech weapons like night vision goggles and lasers that were either stolen from the international coalition and local forces or purchased on the black market, the New York Times (NYT) has learned.
The United States is reportedly increasing its presence in northern Syria’s Manbij region against the possibility of clashes between American allies Turkey and Kurdish forces.
Beijing and Hanoi vowed to work out their differences over China’s claim to nearly the entire South China Sea, including territory within the maritime borders of Vietnam, in a meeting of high-level officials this week.
