Frances Martel

Police in Sri Lanka found bombs and detonators in two new locations Monday after a jihadist bombing spree on Easter killed at least 290.

North Korea dictator Kim Jong-un may enjoy an elite ballet performance and a tour of one of Russia’s public aquariums during a summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin reports have concluded will likely take place this week in eastern Vladivostok.

An angry mob featuring a member of Turkey’s Islamist ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) attempted to beat and “lynch” secular opposition party leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu during a soldier’s funeral Sunday.

Members of Sri Lanka’s prime minister’s cabinet revealed Sunday that Indian authorities warned their intelligence officials in advance of Sunday’s deadly jihadist bombings targeting Christians, but that warning never made it to the prime minister’s office.

The Russian government confirmed Thursday an unprecedented in-person meeting between President Vladimir Putin and North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un before the end of the month, noting that it anticipates positive “chemistry” between the leaders but it can only help so much.

The Philippines province of Pampanga hosted nine crucifixions and dozens of flagellations in its Good Friday observance this year, a tradition the Vatican discourages but continues to thrive thanks to faithful who view it as the ultimate act of penance.

The communist government of Cuba once again arrested Pastor Ramón Rigal and wife Ayda Expósito on Wednesday shortly before they had planned to leave the country. Rigal and his wife are at the forefront of an Evangelical movement against allowing the regime to educate their children. 

Zimbabwe President Emmerson Mnangagwa agreed on a timeline, the government announced Thursday, to exhume some of the 20,000 people believed to have been killed in Operation Gukurahundi, a 1980s attempt under former dictator Robert Mugabe to wipe out the nation’s Ndebele ethnic group.

Two-time Peruvian President Alan García ended his life with a gunshot wound to the head Wednesday after excusing himself from the presence of investigators seeking to detain him on corruption charges and retreating to his bedroom.

A top North Korean diplomat issued a scathing condemnation of U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Thursday for refusing to abandon President Donald Trump’s policy of maintaining sanctions on the rogue nation until it fully dismantles its illegal nuclear weapons program.

Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping has used “a blend of soft and hard power to boost China’s international image,” Time magazine noted Wednesday in its list of the 100 most influential people in the world.

Cuban dissidents on the island and members of the American exile community welcomed news Wednesday, the anniversary of the failed Bay of Pigs invasion, that the Trump administration would allow Americans to sue the Cuban communist regime to reclaim property stolen during the Cuban Revolution.

A presidential campaign video by Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) in which she calls President Donald Trump “al-Qaeda’s big brother” in Syria caught the eye of Iran’s state-run PressTV on Wednesday, which highlighted her “Twitter attack” in defense of Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN).

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Moussavi claimed Wednesday that the world longs to see change in the “U.S. regime nature,” a response to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urging “a change in the nature and the behavior of the Islamic Republic of Iran” as a result of new U.S. sanctions.

Kim Jong-un told the leaders of the communist Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK) last week that one thousand summits with President Donald Trump “will not be able to move us one iota,” then made a surprise visit Tuesday to North Korean air force troops, the first military appearance since November.

Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) workers began removing spent fuel rods from a cooling pool in the destroyed Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant on Monday, the first major step in disposing of the highly radioactive material left in the plant after a tsunami ravaged it in 2011.

New York’s American Museum of Natural History expelled a scheduled gala hosted by the Brazilian-American Chamber of Commerce after the entity chose to honor President Jair Bolsonaro at the event.

A minority party politician in Malawi reignited the debate regarding the use of the death penalty in the African country, Malawi’s Nyasa Times reported Tuesday, calling for the execution of killers targeting albino people to sell their body parts on the black market.

Cuban police released artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara on Monday after arresting him and several others for organizing a footrace to wave American flags around the streets of Havana.

China’s state-run Global Times newspaper published a commentary Sunday that urged Iran to withdraw from Syria and Yemen in response to America’s State Department designating its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) a terrorist organization last week.

The South Korean newswire service Yonhap reports that North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un may meet Russian President Vladimir Putin for the first time next week as the latter travels east to China, the latest in months of reports that the two men have sought to schedule a summit.

Police in Kenya revealed the arrest Monday of a driver affiliated with the Somali outlet al-Shabaab in the case of the abduction of two Cuban slave doctors in a violent ambush on Friday.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo concluded a short tour of Latin America Sunday with a visit to Cúcuta, Colombia, a border city Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro blocked off this year to prevent U.S. aid from entering his impoverished country.

Cuba has invaded and conquered Venezuela, installing tens of thousands of government agents to help the Castro regime profit from drug trafficking, alliances with terrorist groups, and theft of natural resources, the Foundation for Human Rights in Cuba revealed in a report published Friday.

The government of Ecuador rescinded Wikileaks founder Julian Assange’s citizenship, granted in January, following his arrest Thursday morning on charges of conspiracy to hack U.S. military computers.

Renegade general Khalifa Haftar’s assault on the capital of Libya, prompting thousands to flee their homes, may result in a deadly outbreak of several infectious diseases if it blocks aid workers from importing medicine and forces the displaced to consume dirty water, the World Health Organization (WHO) warned on Friday.

The shocking news Thursday morning that the government of Ecuador invited British police into its embassy in London to arrest Wikileaks founder Julian Assange left many questioning why the Latin American country, which protected Assange for over half a decade, now felt comfortable letting him go.

Cuban dictator Raúl Castro issued a warning to his country, already facing significant food and goods shortages, on Wednesday to prepare for the “worst case” economy in light of a campaign by the Trump administration to undermine the communist regime.

North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un ordered senior communist leaders to “deal a telling blow to the hostile forces” supporting sanctions against the regime in remarks Wednesday, presumably meaning the United States but not naming any “hostile forces” in particular.

Spanish actor, artist, and pop icon Miguel Bosé – a household name in Latin America for decades – has launched a pressure campaign to elicit action from U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet that culminated with the singer storming the hotel housing her in Mexico on Tuesday, demanding she break her silence on the crisis in Venezuela.