World News

There was a tense cease-fire on the border between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan after scores of people died in the worst clashes between both nations since they gained independence in the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union.

The Islamic Republic of Iran made multiple attempts in 2020 to obtain technology for its weapons of mass destruction program and has not stopped its drive to develop atomic weapons, intelligence agencies from the Netherlands, Sweden and Germany recently reported.

Denmark removed the single-dose Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 shot from its vaccination program to investigate reports of rare but potentially dangerous blood clots, health authorities said Monday.

The United States and Iran are in active talks over the release of prisoners, a person familiar with the discussions said Sunday as Washington denied a report by Iranian state-run television that deals had been struck.

In an ominous kickoff to the mission to leave, U.S. forces returned fire over the weekend after rockets hit a key air base in Kandahar, Afghanistan, while America’s top general on Sunday warned of “bad possible outcomes” in the country after all U.S. and NATO troops complete their withdrawal.

Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator said that Tehran expects US sanctions on oil, banks and other sectors and on most individuals and institutions to be lifted based on agreements reached so far at talks in Vienna, Iranian state media reported on Saturday.

China’s military is advancing its nuclear arsenal and delivery systems so fast the Defense Intelligence Agency has had to move up its estimate of when Beijing will double its warhead stockpile, the general in charge of military intelligence told Congress on Thursday.

Leaked audiotape of Iranian foreign minister Javad Zarif indicates he had no knowledge of covert Israeli military strikes before former secretary of state John Kerry provided him with the information, new details that contradict the State Department’s recent defense of Kerry.

Plans for a route to peace between the United States and the Afghan Islamist Taliban have become deadlocked amid canceled talks in Turkey, and despite President Joe Biden’s announcement earlier this month that US and NATO troops will unconditionally withdraw from Afghanistan by September 11, NPR reports.

The German intelligence agency for the state of Bavaria said last week in its new report that the Islamic Republic of Iran has not ceased its drive to obtain weapons of mass destruction during 2020.

The Biden administration is considering a near wholesale rollback of some of the most stringent Trump-era sanctions imposed on Iran in a bid to get the Islamic Republic to return to compliance with a landmark 2015 nuclear accord, according to current and former US officials and others familiar with the matter.

German police say four people have been killed at a clinic in the eastern city of Potsdam, and a woman was detained. At least one person was seriously injured, German media reported.

Months after President Biden snubbed Canadian officials by canceling Keystone XL, an impending showdown over a second crude oil pipeline threatens to further strain ties between the two neighbors that were frayed during the Trump administration.

Ursula von der Leyen, the first female president of the European Union’s executive commission, has lashed out at Muslim-majority Turkey for violating women’s rights saying she was “feeling hurt” by a chair snap.

A US Navy vessel fired warning shots toward three Iranian military speed boats in the Gulf this week to warn them after they sped close to the ship, the Navy said Tuesday.

European Union lawmakers are set to formally ratify the post-Brexit deal between the EU and the United Kingdom amid ongoing tensions between London and Brussels over Northern Ireland trade rules.

World powers resumed talks Tuesday in Vienna about revitalizing the 2015 international pact to restrain Iran’s nuclear development program and bring the United States back into the accord that former U.S. President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from in 2018.

The final week of April will begin Monday with the brightest night so far this year, as a supermoon fills the sky after sunset.

China canceled an online meeting with American officials last year to discuss mounting concerns regarding secret Chinese biological weapons work in possible violation of an international treaty, according to a new report.

Leaked audio tapes that reveal the behind-the-scenes power struggles of Iranian officials have recently been published by the New York Times. In the leaks, Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif lamented that it is the Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) who implements policy, overruling governmental decisions.