World News

A top official at the National Institutes of Health said the federal agency has identified more than 500 “scientists of concern” within federally funded academic institutions and research programs as the U.S. government grapples with systematic foreign influence efforts, including Chinese economic espionage.

Pope Francis on Sunday prayed for those who looked the other way after at least 130 migrants fleeing war, persecution and poverty perished in the Mediterranean and aid workers accused states of not responding to distress calls.

Anxious families searched for relatives in Baghdad after the death toll of a weekend fire at a hospital for coronavirus patients rose to at least 82.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky was due Monday to visit the Chernobyl exclusion zone to remember the 35th anniversary of the world’s worst nuclear accident. His address to Ukrainians came as the tragedy is still being felt among suffering survivors who once lived in the area, where rare species have taken over.

Vaccinated tourists from the United States will be permitted to visit the European Union this summer, according to a European Commission official.

Syria’s oil ministry said on Saturday that firefighting teams managed to extinguish a fire in one of the tanks of an oil tanker off the oil terminal of Baniyas after a suspected drone attack from the direction of Lebanese territorial waters, state media reported.

The US decision to finally recognize the Armenian genocide comes after decades in which Turkey and its lobbyists in Washington threatened the US. Their narrative was that if Washington would just use the term “genocide” – for a crime committed 106 years ago by a former government in what is now Turkey – then Ankara would rapidly move to sanction the US, close its bases, threaten its citizens and ally with Iran, China and Russia, or other US enemies.

More than a century after one of the worst massacres of Christians, U.S. President Joe Biden formally declared the systemic killing and deportation of some 1.5 million Armenians by Ottoman Empire forces “genocide.”

Russia announced Thursday that thousands of troops deployed to its border with Ukraine will be withdrawn by May 1, Axios reports. Although Russia had said it was conducting military exercises at the border, the recent massive build-up of troops and military equipment, including fighter planes, had raised fears of an imminent Russian invasion of Ukraine.

China’s military is engaged in a “very rapid” expansion of nuclear forces, which threatens U.S. security and is complicating efforts to deter both Russia as well as China, the commander of the Strategic Command told Congress on Wednesday.

Russia has announced it has begun building a space station of its own, and has plans to withdraw from the International Space Station (ISS) in 2025, BBC News reports. The ISS was launched by the United States and Russia in 1998 and has been a showcase for international cooperation.

Hungarian President János Áder and Anita Herczegh, the First Lady, have launched a foundation to help children orphaned by the coronavirus.

Thousands have rallied across Russia against the detention of jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny amid concerns about his health. More than 1,000 people were reportedly arrested after defying a ban on demonstrations.

China has built a pier large enough to hold an aircraft carrier close to its only naval base in Africa, USNI reported Tuesday. Recently completed, the pier is in the state of Djibouti, and is near the Bab el Mandeb entrance to the Red Sea from the Gulf of Aden.

Satellite photos show that Russia has deployed warplanes to Crimea and bases near Ukraine, bolstering its readiness for military action and political intimidation, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.

Iran has installed extra advanced centrifuges at its underground uranium enrichment plant at Natanz and plans to add even more, a report by the UN atomic watchdog on Wednesday showed, according to Reuters.

Important disagreements between the United States and Iran persist after the latest round of indirect nuclear talks in Vienna this week, with the negotiations still far from conclusion and the outcome uncertain, a senior State Department official said on Wednesday.

Apart from China and despite a worldwide drop in death sentences, countries in the Middle East remained among the world’s leading executioners last year, Amnesty International said Wednesday.

Chad’s longtime President Idriss Déby Itno has died in clashes with rebels in the north of the country, the military confirmed Tuesday.

High-level talks in Vienna aimed at bringing the United States back into the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran have already resolved 60-70 percent of the key issues, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani was quoted by state media as saying Tuesday.