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.
Iran’s state TV reported Tuesday that Iranian government authorities had arrested members of a group connected to Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency, the Associated Press reports. The arrests were reported amid protests in Iran over water shortages in Khuzestan province.
China on Wednesday told Brussels to stop “politicizing the issue of origins tracing” after a European Union official called for more investigations.
China is building a field of more than 100 nuclear missile silos out of range of most U.S. weapons, satellite images reveal.
Iran opened its first oil terminal in the Gulf of Oman, a move aimed at making Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s regime less dependent on the Strait of Hormuz, often a source of international tension.
Hungarians demonstrated Monday against the reported spying by the government of hundreds of Hungarians, including critical journalists, activists, and other public figures.
Dozens of Iranians marched down a major street in Tehran on Monday, online videos show, amid ongoing protests over water shortages in southwestern Iran.
The U.S. federal government should have stopped funding research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in 2015 when China reduced its cooperation with the French in building and operating the lab, according to the leader of an investigation into COVID-19’s origins by the State Department under the Trump administration.
In a move welcomed by LGBTQ activists, Argentina now officially allows citizens to place an ‘X’ in their national ID document, instead of male or female, DW reports. The first South American country to make this change, Argentina is following New Zealand, Canada, and Australia in its decision.
UNICEF reported last week that over 71% of people in Lebanon are at immediate risk of losing access to safe water as a grinding economic crisis causes water pumping to cease across the country. More than 4 million citizens are within ‘highly critical’ and ‘critical’ levels of risk.
Tunisia plunged into the worst social unrest in years Monday, with the main political parties accusing the president of staging a coup.
The Dutch are facing social and political unrest over the government’s decision to return at least some of the dozens of mainly female Islamic State group fighters and their 56 children from Syria to the Netherlands. The government views it as a humanitarian and legal obligation. Still, populist parties fear the radicalized returnees may threaten Dutch security.
Thousands of Hungarians, many armed with rainbow flags and rainbow umbrellas, have demonstrated against a law that bans teaching about homosexuality and transgender issues in schools. Saturday’s Budapest Pride march came after the self-declared conservative Prime Minister Viktor Orbán confirmed a referendum on what he called the “child protection” legislation.
A major typhoon has hit China’s eastern coast just days after deadly floods devastated parts of the country.
The future of the U.S. war in Iraq will come into focus Monday when President Biden meets with Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi at the White House, with the two leaders expected to finalize a withdrawal plan that could fundamentally reshape America’s military role in the Middle East.
The French parliament early Monday approved a bill that will make COVID-19 vaccinations mandatory for health workers as well as require a health pass in a wide array of social venues as France battles with a fourth wave of coronavirus infections.
U.S. and Russian diplomats will hold the first round of nuclear arms control talks of the Biden administration next week in Geneva, Switzerland, the two countries announced on July 23.