The Turkish Interior Ministry announced on Tuesday that it had opened an investigation into Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu for allegedly disrespecting an Ottoman sultan’s tomb, Turkish news outlet Ahval reported.
Taiwan Foreign Minister Joseph Wu told Sky News in an interview published Wednesday that China’s military forces “seem to be preparing for their final military assault against Taiwan.”
China’s state-run propaganda outlet the Global Times on Monday ran cover for domestically developed coronavirus vaccines after ex-Peruvian President Martín Vizcarra announced that he and his wife had tested positive for the Chinese coronavirus after receiving the Sinopharm vaccine in October.
Russian authorities detained over 1,700 protesters across the country on Wednesday as they demonstrated in support of imprisoned Russian dissident Alexei Navalny, according to OVD-Info, an organization tracking police detentions.
Russian dissident Alexei Navalny’s personal doctor, Anastasia Vasilyeva, on Tuesday claimed the prison did not allow her and a group of physicians to examine him amid concerns of his rapidly deteriorating health. Meanwhile, the Russian government has asserted that the European Court of Human Right’s (ECHR) ban on releasing Navalny’s personal health documents is part of a large coverup campaign orchestrated to benefit western intelligence operatives.
The Kremlin announced Thursday that Russian President Vladimir Putin will not move forward on an offer from U.S. President Joe Biden to meet in person, at least for the time being, Russian state media outlet RT reported.
A spokesman for the governor of Badakhshan said Taliban forces launched a lethal assault against the Afghan National Army (ANA) on Tuesday morning, the first day of Ramadan, killing three government soldiers in the province, the Khaama Press reported.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Friday said the Russian population had a high level of “natural immunity” to the Chinese coronavirus that aided in the nation’s efforts to combat the pandemic, according to Tass.
Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law on Monday adjusting his term limits which would allow him to potentially remain in the nation’s highest office until 2036, the Associated Press reported.
Russia on Wednesday declined multiple offers to renew a tenuous ceasefire with Ukraine over the ongoing war in Donbass, eastern Ukraine.
China’s state-run propaganda outlet Global Times on Tuesday trumpeted a number of diplomatic breakthroughs between China and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) that sprung from Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s ongoing tour of the Middle East, including deal between Chinese pharmaceutical company Sinopharm and Group 42, an Emirati firm, to produce Chinese coronavirus vaccines in the UAE.
The closure of the Suez Canal, one of the world’s busiest maritime shipping lanes, continues into its second day after a cargo ship ran aground and completely blocked passage between the Red and Mediterranean Seas. The Suez Canal Authority announced Thursday it was “temporarily suspending navigation” through the canal as maritime traffic backed up on both ends, Agence France-Presse reported.
The long-imprisoned Selahattin Demirtas, former co-leader of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) and prominent opponent of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, received an additional 3.5 years on his sentence after a Turkish court on Monday found him guilty of “insulting the president.”
In a video address, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba blasted Iran’s final report on the downing of Ukraine International Airlines flight PS752 as “just a cynical attempt to hide the true causes for the downing of our aircraft,” according to Ukrainian state media outlet Ukrinform.
Kurdish members of the Iraqi Parliament (MP) and another MP got into a physical brawl Monday night over the latter’s reported insults to the Kurdistan Regional Government and its leaders, Kurdish news outlet Rudaw reported.
The Russian government on Wednesday deflected blame for a myriad of web access issues — including difficult using Google and YouTube, as well as crashes on government websites — asserting the problems were not the result of the Kremlin’s deliberate slowdown of Twitter.
Indian Health Minister Ashwini Choubey told the Rajya Sabha, the national legislature’s upper chamber, on Tuesday that an intranasal coronavirus vaccine candidate Bharat Biotech is developing had reached clinical development stages, the Times of India reported.
Interpol on Wednesday warned of an oncoming rise in vaccine-related crime after police in South Africa and China seized thousands of doses of fake coronavirus vaccines, asserting that the colossal busts were just the “tip of the iceberg.”
Facial recognition technology in the Moscow Metro has aided in the arrest of more than 900 people over the past six months, the Metro press service told Russian state media outlet Tass on Tuesday.
The Trans-Baikal Regional Court in Siberia has sentenced a Russian national, convicted of high treason for sending state secrets to a foreign power, to 8 years imprisonment in a “strict regime penal colony,” a Wednesday statement from the court announced.
Ukraine has filed a case with the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) accusing Russia of the “targeted assassinations” of its political opponents “in Russia and on the territory of other state” and of hiding its lethal activities, a Tuesday press release from the ECHR revealed.
The Tverskoi district court in Moscow has sentenced Sergei Smirnov, editor of the news site Mediazona, to 25 days in jail for “repeated violations” of mass gathering restrictions, though he contends it was a joke tweet in which he suggested a resemblance between himself and Russian rock star Dmitry Spirin, who has openly backed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, that landed him in hot water, Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty (RFERL) reported Wednesday.
Chinese police have made around 80 arrests linked to a fake vaccination scheme in which participants reportedly marketed syringes filled with saline — essentially salt water — as coronavirus vaccines and sold them for extortionate profits, state news outlet Xinhua reported Monday.
Russian President Vladimir Putin gave an ominous speech to the World Economic Forum on Wednesday, warning the Chinese coronavirus pandemic and rising income inequality threatened to thrust the world into “all against all” conflict, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.
A Belarusian lawyer working for dissident Alexei Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK) claims Russian police forcibly removed him from the country, binding him with handcuffs and tossing a sack over his head before driving him across the border and handing him over to Belarusian authorities, Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty (RFERL) reported Tuesday.
Russian state media monitor Roskomnadzor is pressuring social media outlets, especially TikTok, to restrict online content in support of protests following the arrest of prominent dissident Alexei Navalny, the Moscow Times reported Thursday.
Dozens of protesters demonstrated on Monday outside of a Moscow police station demanding the release of prominent Russian dissident Alexei Navalny, whom authorities arrested at a Moscow airport upon his return to the country and placed on trial for violating the terms of a suspended prison sentence.
The Russian Federal Penitentiary Service (FSIN) announced Thursday that prominent opposition leader and Putin critic Alexei Navalny will face arrest upon his return to Russia, state media outlet Tass reported Thursday.
Chinese state propaganda machine Global Times on Monday railed against western accusations that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has organized a genocide against the majority Muslim Uyghurs in the Xinjiang autonomous region via forced labor camps, asserting that the United States had in fact committed a genocide against Native Americans.
Venezuelan socialist officials working under dictator Nicolás Maduro celebrated the chaos in Washington, DC, on Wednesday as supporters of President Donald Trump overran the U.S. Capitol building, allegedly to protest the results of the 2020 presidential election.
Supporters of President Donald Trump staged demonstrations at the Capitols of multiple states on Wednesday, with some entering the statehouses, as crowds storm the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, DC, to protest the certification of the Electoral College votes, which would officially declare Joe Biden the winner of the presidential election.
Chinese dictator Xi Jinping on Monday issued orders to the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to prepare to “act at any second” and maintain “full-time combat readiness,” the South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported Tuesday.
Russia expelled two Colombian diplomats Wednesday after the Latin American state made a similar move against two Russian officials at the embassy in Bogotá, Reuters reported.
The government of the Central African Republic (CAR) on Monday announced that Russia and Rwanda had deployed military forces in the country to counter an alleged coup d’etat and safeguard the national elections. Russia denied it sent any forces to
Russian President Vladimir Putin addressed deteriorating relations between Russia and the West in a Thursday press conference, describing his country as “harmless and squeaky clean” relative to them and highlighting U.S. withdrawal from military treaties with Russia and NATO expansion into the former Soviet bloc as evidence of western culpability, the Russian state-owned Tass reported.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced on Monday that the U.S. would impose sanctions on Turkey’s Presidency of Defense Industries (SSB) after it purchased Russian-made S-400 surface-to-air missiles, despite repeated U.S. objections and security concerns.
Azerbaijan held a victory parade in the capital of Baku on Thursday — with close military ally Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in attendance — celebrating the nation’s capture of territory in Nagorno-Karabakh, the Turkish state news agency Anadolu reported Thursday.
Amid mounting tensions over territorial claims in the Himalayas with India, the Chinese military has been setting up military positions along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) — an informal line that functionally serves as a border — with at least 20 such encampments already in place, the Times of India (TOI) reports.
Assistant Attorney General for National Security John Demers, speaking at the Aspen Cyber Summit on Wednesday, confirmed over 1,000 Chinese researchers have left the United States since the Trump administration has escalated its attempts to curb Chinese intellectual property theft.
A senior commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps — officially a U.S.-designated terrorist organization — died in an airstrike sometime between Saturday and Sunday, Reuters reported, citing local militia and Iraqi security.
