Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard launched underground ballistic missiles for the first time, as part of an exercise involving a mock-up aircraft carrier in the Strait of Hormuz, state television reported Wednesday.
Looking to strengthen its space cooperation with China amid heightened geopolitical tensions with the United States, Russia is in talks with Beijing about the possibility of building a joint lunar research base.
The European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) has urged the European Union to help end an alleged government crackdown on independent media in Hungary.
Saudi Arabia has presented a resolution to implement the stalled Riyadh agreement, the Saudi state news agency said in a statement, but there was no announcement of a deal to end a standoff between nominal allies under a Saudi-led coalition.
Tech giant Google has announced it is developing a smart tattoo that will turn the human body into a touchpad through embedded sensors. The “SkinMarks” project seeks to create the next generation of wearable technological devices, Google reported Monday. The project is partly funded by Google Faculty Research Awards.
Chinese officials entered and took control of the U.S. Consulate in the city of Chengdu early on Monday, 72 hours after ordering its closure in retaliation for the U.S. decision to shut China’s consulate in Houston. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had called the mission in Houston a “hub of spying and intellectual property theft.”
A new survey has shown that citizens around the world are losing confidence in their governments over their handling of the coronavirus pandemic, Yahoo News reports. Publishing their report on Saturday, Kekst CNC communications consultancy said: “In most countries this month, support for national governments is falling.” The survey came as officials reported over 280,000 daily new cases worldwide on both Thursday and Friday.
Ukrainian government forces and pro-Russian separatists began a ceasefire in eastern Ukraine on Monday as part of efforts to end their six-year conflict.
Iran has moved a mock aircraft carrier to the strategic Strait of Hormuz amid heightened tensions between Tehran and the US, satellite photographs released Monday show, likely signaling the Islamic Republic soon plans to use it for live-fire drills.
A German court has convicted a 93-year-old former Nazi SS concentration camp guard for complicity in the murder of thousands of prisoners. Bruno Dey was among the last World War Two-era Nazi suspects to face trial in Germany.
Some 80 journalists have resigned from Hungary’s leading news website Index.hu amid mounting government pressure on independent and critical media.
President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke on the phone Thursday and discussed arms control and economic recovery in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, the Washington Times reports. Although this is the first time the two leaders have talked since allegations emerged that Russia had offered bounties for Afghan militants to kill US soldiers, neither the White House nor the Kremlin made mention of this issue in their statements about the call.
Spain and several other European nations are taking new measures to halt an increase in reported coronavirus cases. The decisions come amid fresh warnings by authorities of a widespread “second wave” of infections.
China on Friday ordered the United States to close its consulate in the western city of Chengdu, in retaliation for the closure of China’s Houston consulate earlier this week.
China was among a range of topics discussed by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson in London Tuesday, VOA News reports. Pompeo arrived for talks only days after Johnson finally decided to exclude Chinese tech giant Huawei from developing the UK’s 5G phone network, a move Washington has been exhorting for some time.
Because of the number of COVID-19 cases in the US, American and Canadian officials have agreed to keep the border between the two nations closed to all except commercial and essential traffic for another month. Two recent surveys have shown that a large majority of Canadians support the continued closure of the border, VOA News reported Tuesday.
President Trump spoke by phone with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday about arms control and recovering their economies from the coronavirus pandemic.
The leaders of four German states wrote to Congress asking for a halt to Washington’s troop withdrawal plan from the country, Reuters reported Sunday.
A hostage crisis in western Ukraine has ended after the country’s president met a bizarre demand that he post on the internet a link to an internationally acclaimed movie on animal abuse. Security forces could free all 13 hostages unharmed from a bus in the western city of Lutsk, some 400 kilometers (250 miles) west of Kiev, the capital.
The U.S. ordered the Chinese Consulate in Houston, Texas, shut down because of the persistent problem of Bejing’s theft of U.S. intellectual property, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Wednesday.