World News

There was political turmoil Wednesday after the speaker of Canada’s House of Commons resigned for inviting a man who fought for a Nazi military unit during World War II to Parliament to attend a speech by the Ukrainian president.

Tensions remained Wednesday after a Budapest court sentenced a captain to five and a half years in prison for his role in an accident in which his cruise ship hit and sank a smaller boat on the River Danube in Hungary, killing at least 27 people.

African leaders delivered an unequivocal message to the UN General Assembly last week that Africa is a global power that deserves to be treated by the West as an equal partner and not sidelined as a charity case, the Associated Press reports.

Lethal violence against women in Mexico has steadily increased in recent years, and experts believe that the phenomenon is directly related to Mexican militarization and organized crime, Global Citizen reports. According to data released by Mexico’s National Public Security System, 43,000 women were killed in the country between 2006 and 2021.

The UN-backed international commission of human rights experts on Ethiopia reported this week that the recent conflict in the country’s Tigray region has left at least 10,000 survivors of rape and sexual violence, the Associated Press reports. The commission added that all sides in the war had committed atrocities, including mass killings, rape, starvation, and destruction of schools and medical facilities.

At least 20 people were killed and hundreds injured in an explosion at a fuel depot in the volatile South Caucasus enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, authorities confirmed Tuesday.

Turkish state media and the pro-Iranian Al-Mayadeen both highlighted new tensions in Syria this week. They reported on increased attacks by tribal fighters against the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán warned Monday that his country isn’t in a hurry to ratify Sweden’s membership of the NATO military alliance because the Nordic nation criticized Hungary’s perceived rule of law violations.

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.