Acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller made an unannounced visit to Afghanistan Tuesday, meeting with Afghan officials and American troops as the U.S. continues a major drawdown from the country during President Trump’s final weeks in office.
European Union and British negotiators are nearing a trade deal as Britain’s New Year’s Day exit from the 27-nation bloc approaches, EU officials said Wednesday.
While France’s President Emanuel Macron has said vaccination against COVID-19 will not be mandatory, French Prime Minister Jean Castex got cabinet approval Monday for a bill that would require proof of vaccination in order to access public transport among locations and activities, France24 reports. The bill now passes to the French parliament.
The Trump administration slapped new sanctions on Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad’s regime Tuesday, in a further effort to end the civil war that has raged in Syria since 2011, the Sara Carter show (SCS) reported. Following sanctions imposed in 2019, the newest measures affect Syria’s central bank and a number of entities and individuals connected to Assad.
Russia and China are continuing to work together to reduce their dependence on the US dollar, as both countries seek to mitigate the impact of United States sanctions against them, CNS News reports. Trading between Russia and China reached a record $110 billion in 2019, and the two countries have committed to increasing their trade turnover to $200 billion by 2024.
Eleven Christian Armenian prisoners of war have been killed by their Azerbaijani captors in the contested Nagorno-Karabakh enclave, despite the presence of Russian peacekeepers, aid workers told Worthy News.
The United States has responded to Russia’s call to continue negotiations on the New START arms-control treaty by reiterating a U.S. proposal and saying the Russians have “rejected” attempts to restart the talks.
The characteristically stable Antarctic continent has been shaken by an unprecedented spate of 30,000-50,000 tremors in the last three months, Israel365 News reported Monday. According to a report by the University of Chile’s National Seismological Centre, the wave of tremors was concentrated in the 60 miles wide Bransfield Strait which extends 300 miles from the Antarctic Peninsula in a north-easterly direction.
Five police officers were injured and 29 people were arrested during anti-lockdown protests in Britain on Saturday, ITV reports. Demonstrators had gathered in London to protest against tough new COVID-19 restrictions being imposed to combat a mutant variant of the coronavirus that is believed to be more contagious than the earlier form.
Six Hungarian opposition parties say they unite to oust the increasingly autocratic Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who has suffered in the polls amid ongoing corruption scandals.
Post-Brexit trade talks between Britain and the European Union remained grid-locked Sunday evening, even as there remain just days to go before the official transition period comes to an end on December 31, the Associated Press reports. In the event no agreement is reached by the end of the year, the two parties will default to trading on World Trade Organization terms, with all the tariffs and barriers that this will entail.
An American nuclear-powered guided-missile submarine traversed the strategically vital waterway between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula on Monday, the U.S. Navy said, a rare announcement that comes amid rising tensions with Iran.
At least three rockets targeted the US embassy in Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone on Sunday, Iraqi security officials said, sparking fears of renewed unrest, as next month’s anniversary of the slaying of an Iranian general draws near.
Iran has begun construction on a site at its underground nuclear facility at Fordo amid tensions with the US over its atomic program, satellite photos obtained Friday by The Associated Press show.
Authorities in several European countries banned flights from Britain on Sunday amid mounting fears over an infectious new strain of COVID-19.
Russia says it will return an Orthodox Church icon, presented to the Russian foreign minister in Bosnia-Herzegovina where local elections were held in a strategic city on Sunday. The announcement came after the gift triggered a protest from Ukraine.
China has detained a prominent journalist amid an intensified clampdown by the ruling Communist authorities on independent reporting.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has blamed Russia for one of the largest cyberattacks on American government agencies and private companies in recent memory. Russia has denied involvement in the scandal.
A monitoring group reported Tuesday that, while there remains work to be done, Saudi Arabia has significantly reduced anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist content in its school books for the coming year, the Times of Israel reports. The Jerusalem-based Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se) published its report amid speculation that Saudi Arabia, a long-time enemy of Israel, may follow Bahrain, Sudan, and the United Arab Emirates in normalizing relations with the Jewish State.
Authorities in North Korea have publicly executed the owner of a fishing fleet for secretly listening to broadcasts by U.S.-funded Radio Free Asia (RFA) and other media outlets, Worthy News learned Friday.