The US is intensifying counter-terrorism airstrikes against al-Qaeda affiliates who have increased their attacks in Somalia since the withdrawal of hundreds of American troops this year, Bloomberg News reports. The US Africa Command has confirmed that airstrikes were carried out on July 20 and 23 and on Aug. 1.
The Cuban Observatory for Human Rights (OCDH) has reported that since the July 11 outbreak of nationwide protests in Cuba, the communist government has carried out at least 1,745 repressive actions against protestors, of which 1,103 were some type of arbitrary detention. The OCDH said the published figures are not definitive as the collection of data has been hindered by repressive government actions.
Tens of thousands of people took to the streets in Italy, France, and Greece over the weekend to protest against mandatory vaccination policies and overall COVID-19 restrictions, DW reports.
The head of a group helping people fleeing Belarus has been found dead near his home in neighboring Ukraine, officials said Monday. Vitaly Shishov’s body was found hanged in a park in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv a day after he failed to return from a jog, according to police.
Iranian-backed forces have taken control of a tanker in the Gulf of Oman, reports said late Tuesday in an incident British authorities described as “a potential hijack.”
The Afghan air force on Monday pounded the Taliban with repeated airstrikes in an effort to keep insurgent fighters from capturing key cities in southern and western Afghanistan, officials said, as the battle for the country’s future moves from the rural countryside toward major population centers.
The top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee said in a report Monday that the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 leaked from China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology in August or early September 2019 and that Chinese officials took part in “the greatest coverup of all time.”
Australia’s government sent the army Monday to help enforce strict lockdowns in Sydney, where it claims many COVID-19 cases were recorded.
Poland says it has granted a humanitarian visa to a sprinter from Belarus who refused her team’s order to fly home early from the Olympics. The offer to Krystsina Tsimanouskaya was due to lead to asylum in the European Union nation amid growing political and social turmoil in Belarus.
A group of women and children who were the families of Albanian nationals who joined Islamic extremist groups fighting in Syria and Iraq have returned to their homeland. Their arrival Sunday comes amid a debate in several other countries in Europe on what to do with fighters and supporters of groups such as the Islamic State.
The autocratic president of Belarus says he is ready to invite Russian troops into his nation if required for the security of both Belarus and Russia. Alexander Lukashenko’s comments were due to raise tensions with the international community.
A Belarusian Olympic athlete who criticized her nation’s authoritarian leadership and coaches wants asylum in a European Union nation, Worthy News learned Sunday.
It started two weeks ago as a small-scale demonstration over water shortages in a remote province, but like other Iranian protests in recent years, the outburst has spread to several major cities with large crowds calling for the downfall of the Iranian regime and chants of “Death to the dictator.”
Taliban fighters struck Kandahar airport in southern Afghanistan with at least three rockets overnight, the insurgent group’s spokesman said on Sunday, adding that the aim was to thwart air strikes conducted by Afghan government forces.
Pro-Life doctors and Christian groups are under pressure after the European Parliament passed a resolution saying that abortion is a “human right” and condemned opponents.
The National Center of Meteorology in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, has found a new way to make it rain. It’s using laser-beam-shooting drones to generate rainfall artificially.
The politically charged dispute over the origins of COVID-19 spilled over at the U.N. General Assembly on Wednesday, with the U.S. accusing China trying to “undermine” the investigation and Beijing’s envoy retorting that the U.S. was smearing China in a bid to deflect attention from “its botched response to the pandemic.”
A public inquiry into the car bomb murder of anti-corruption journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia has concluded that the Maltese state failed to protect her.
A prominent Chinese billionaire who was outspoken on issues such as human rights has been sentenced to 18 years imprisonment in China.
The Afghan government may well fall to the Taliban after the US completes its military withdrawal in August, a US government watchdog reported on Wednesday. The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) Afghan security forces are ill-prepared to resist the Taliban militarily, the Voice of America reports.