World News

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) on Monday condemned a Belarusian court for sentencing journalist Vyacheslau Lazarau to 5.5 years imprisonment for “facilitating extremism.”

Volatile Kosovo edged closer to civil war late Sunday after at least four people were killed following a raid by Kosovan security forces on a monastery held by dozens of heavily armed men near the border with Serbia.

The Netherlands has urged Pakistan to respect the conviction of a Pakistani former cricket player who was sentenced to 12 years imprisonment for death threats against outspoken Dutch anti-Islam politician Geert Wilders.

French President Emmanuel Macron said France would withdraw its ambassador and end all military cooperation with Niger following a coup in a move welcomed by the military junta leaders.

A massive exodus of Christian ethnic Armenians was underway in Nagorno-Karabakh, days after mainly Muslim Azerbaijan seized the majority ethnic Armenian enclave, witnesses observed.

Iran on Friday displayed what it claimed to be “the longest-range drone in the world” during a military parade that featured banners threatening Israel.

In an apparent u-turn, U.S. President Joe Biden told his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky that Washington would provide Kyiv with ATACMS long-range missiles, U.S. media report citing several officials.

The Ukrainian military said Friday that it carried out a “successful” strike on the headquarters of Russia’s Black Sea navy in Crimea, the peninsula Moscow annexed from Ukraine in 2014.

Ukraine’s president arrived in Canada on Friday amid signs of diplomatic tensions with several members of the NATO military alliance over grain imports and military aid.

Poland says it has stopped supplying weapons to Ukraine amid an escalating dispute over grain shipments threatening to break a critical alliance in Kyiv’s fight against Russia. The announcement came after Ukraine lashed out over Poland and other neighbors’ decision to halt Ukrainian grain imports.

Dutch King Willem-Alexander says the Netherlands must continue coming to grips with the country’s dark historical ties to slavery, even beyond this anniversary year. “So that after acknowledgment and apology, we can work together to foster healing, reconciliation, and recovery.”

Azerbaijan’s president claimed late Wednesday that his Muslim nation “restored” its sovereignty over Nagorno-Karabakh, where Christian Armenians live, in a military offensive that may have killed hundreds of people.

China’s military sent over 150 warplanes toward Taiwan this week in an unprecedented military action that the island’s government swiftly condemned as “harassment.”

Officials say that 24 hours after Azerbaijan’s army launched an offensive in the region of Nagorno-Karabakh that killed dozens of people, ethnic-Armenian forces have agreed on Russia’s terms for a ceasefire. At least 32 people were reportedly killed and about 200 injured since skirmishes were confirmed Tuesday in the South Caucasus enclave, impacting the predominantly Christian population in the region.

Iranian Minister of Defense and Armed Forces Mohammad Reza Ashtiani stated Wednesday that bilateral relations between Russia and Iran have developed to reach an unprecedented new level of cooperation and understanding, the Interfax news agency reports.

The Azerbaijani military on Tuesday broke through lines of Armenian troops in Nagorno-Karabakh in an effort to drive Armenian forces out of the region, Reuters reports. While Nagorno-Karabakh is internationally recognized as Azerbaijani territory, its mostly ethnic Armenian population claims the area is their ancestral homeland and has actively resisted Azerbaijani control of it for over 100 years.

World leaders should quickly consider creating a global organization akin to the International Atomic Energy Agency to address both the benefits and the dangers of artificial intelligence — specifically, those associated with the fast-emerging realm of “generative A.I.” capable of creating text, images and videos.

The European Union has temporarily halted its funding for the World Food Program (WFP) in Somalia after a United Nations investigation revealed widespread theft of aid intended for Somalis facing famine, Reuters reported. The European Commission received donations of over $1 billion last year, and gave around $7 million in aid to the WFP in Somalia.

The Taliban regime in Afghanistan has detained an American volunteer surgeon among 18 team members from the International Assistance Mission humanitarian aid NGO (IAM), Radio Free Europe (RFE) reports. The detainees were taken into custody over a period of 11 days, starting on September 3, with no explanation given for the move.

Ukraine on Monday said it plans to sue neighbors Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia over bans on Ukrainian agricultural products.