Tag Archives: world politics

After nearly a decade, Nicaragua’s congress finally canceled on Wednesday a controversial canal concession granted to a Chinese businessman that critics said endangered the environment and threatened to displace rural communities. Despite a symbolic “groundbreaking” in 2014, no work was done on the canal that was to link Nicaragua’s Atlantic and Pacific coasts. At one point, crews broke ground on …

Armenia’s prime minister visited Moscow and held talks Wednesday with Russian President Vladimir Putin amid spiraling tensions between the estranged allies. Putin hosted Nikol Pashinyan for talks following a summit of the Eurasian Economic Union, a Moscow-dominated economic alliance. that they both attended earlier in the day. The negotiations came a day after Putin began his fifth term at a …

North Macedonia elected its first woman president Wednesday as the governing Social Democrats suffered historic losses in twin presidential and parliamentary elections. Conservative-backed Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova, a 70-year-old law professor, was declared the winner after receiving nearly 65% support with more than two-thirds of the vote counted in a presidential runoff. “Is there a bigger change than electing a woman as …

Belarus on Tuesday launched drills involving missiles and warplanes capable of carrying tactical nuclear weapons, which close ally Russia has deployed there amid tensions with the West over Ukraine. The Belarusian maneuvers began a day after Russia announced plans to hold similar drills simulating the use of battlefield nuclear weapons in what it cast as a response to statements by …

The governor of the Italian region surrounding the port city of Genoa was placed under house arrest Tuesday as part of a corruption investigation by prosecutors alleging he granted political favors in exchange for money. ITALIAN PM MELONI ALLY FIRES BACK AGAINST CRITICISM SAYS POLICIES THE SAME BUT ‘EUROPE HAS CHANGED’ Giovanni Toti, president of the Liguria region, was “serene …

Scotland’s former deputy first minister was poised to become its third leader in just over a year after taking the helm of the troubled Scottish National Party on Monday. John Swinney, who led the SNP two decades ago, was the only candidate to replace First Minister Humza Yousaf as the leader of the party. SCOTTISH LEADER SAYS HE WON’T RESIGN …

Polish prosecutors opened an investigation Monday after a Polish judge fled to the autocratic state of Belarus and asked for protection there. The National Prosecutor’s Office said it is looking into suspicions that the judge was acting on behalf of a foreign intelligence service. According to Belarus state media, Judge Tomasz Szmydt told journalists in Minsk, the Belarusian capital, that …

A powerful ethnic minority armed group battling Burma’s army in the country’s west claimed Monday to have taken hundreds of government soldiers prisoner when it captured a major command post. The Arakan Army, the well-trained and well-armed military wing of the Rakhine ethnic minority movement, has been on the offensive against army outposts in the western state of Rakhine — …

A Russian journalist who has worked for both state-funded and independent media was detained Monday and faces charges of justifying terrorism through posts on the Telegram messaging app, her lawyer said. The detention of Nadezhda Kevorkova comes amid an intensifying crackdown on journalists, opposition figures and critics of Russia’s war in Ukraine. Kevorkova is expected to appear in court Tuesday, …

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan formally opened a former Byzantine church in Istanbul as a mosque on Monday, four years after his government had designated it a Muslim house of prayer, despite criticism from neighboring Greece. Turkey formally converted The Church of St. Saviour in Chora, known as Kariye in Turkish, into a mosque in 2020, soon after it similarly …