Nigeria: Illegal Oil Refinery Explodes, Kills 110 People
An explosion at an illegal oil refinery in southern Nigeria last week killed 110 people, Nigeria’s Vanguard newspaper reported on Wednesday.
An explosion at an illegal oil refinery in southern Nigeria last week killed 110 people, Nigeria’s Vanguard newspaper reported on Wednesday.
The administration of left-wing New Zealand President Jacinda Ardern acted “unlawfully” last year when it closed the nation’s borders to its own citizens to curb transmission of the Chinese coronavirus, the High Court of Wellington ruled on Wednesday.
Beijing’s government is “waging a critical and decisive war” against the omicron variant of the Chinese coronavirus, China’s state-run Global Times reported on Tuesday.
A Hindu nationalist group in the southern Indian city of Bangalore recently accused an explicitly Christian private high school of “forcing” the Bible on students of the school by teaching it in class, Bangalore’s The News Minute digital platform reported on Tuesday.
Beijing health officials on Monday warned that an upcoming communist holiday on May 1 known as “May Day” would cause an increase in travel into the Chinese national capital and therefore raise the city’s risk of facing a spike in Chinese coronavirus cases, the state-run Global Times reported.
Beijing has recently ramped up its use of established extradition treaties with Central Asian nations to target Chinese-origin Uyghurs and transport them back to China to face criminal proceedings for alleged offenses, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) reported on Monday.
Shanghai government authorities vowed on Sunday to prosecute companies and individuals accused of illegally distributing essential foodstuffs to city residents during Shanghai’s ongoing Chinese coronavirus lockdown, China’s state-run Global Times reported Monday.
The Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) — the formal name for Boko Haram — on Saturday claimed responsibility for two separate attacks in recent days, the Guardian reported: a bombing in the northeastern Nigerian state of Tabara and a fatal police station
The Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro, traditionally home to the world’s largest carnival festival, held the celebration over the weekend for the first time in two years after being forced to cancel the event amid the Chinese coronavirus pandemic, Brazil’s GloboNews reported on Monday.
South Korean military police on Monday detained a South Korean Marine upon his arrival back into the country that day from eastern Europe, where he allegedly attempted to travel to Ukraine to fight for the nation in its latest war with Russia, Yonhap News Agency reported.
The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) declared a new epidemic of the Ebola virus in the nation’s northwestern city of Mbandaka, located in DRC’s Equateur Province, on Saturday, Sky News reported on Sunday.
A court in eastern China’s Ningbo city sentenced U.S. citizen Shadeed Abdulmateen to death on Thursday for the intentional homicide of his former girlfriend, a 21-year-old Chinese citizen, in June 2021, the state-run China Central Television (CCTV) reported.
Hong Kong health officials confirmed this week that 1,100 cadavers remained in municipal cold storage facilities unclaimed because local funeral parlors have failed to keep up with the surging demand for funerals caused by Hong Kong’s latest epidemic of the Chinese coronavirus, the Hong Kong Free Press (HKFP) reported on Friday.
Tens of thousands of people attended a rally on Thursday night in Lahore, Pakistan, in support of the nation’s former prime minister, Imran Khan, who was ousted from power on April 10 through a “no-confidence” vote by Pakistan’s parliament, Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper reported on Friday.
Shanghai’s government on Thursday began installing electronic door alarms on some residences to prevent people from leaving their homes while the city’s entire populace remains under a state-mandated Chinese coronavirus lockdown, China’s state-run Global Times reported on Friday.
Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi terrorists have committed at least 80 violations of an ongoing ceasefire since it went into effect in early April, the official army of the country alleged on Thursday.
The Sunni jihadist Taliban terrorist organization claimed on Tuesday that it shuttered all secondary girls’ schools across Afghanistan in March because their existence allegedly violated sharia, or Islamic law, Afghanistan’s Khaama Press news agency reported on Wednesday.
A court in western Rwanda sentenced a Chinese national named Sun Shujun to 20 years in prison in recent days after finding him guilty of torturing at least two Rwandan miners in August 2021, Rwanda’s the New Times newspaper reported on Wednesday.
Police in the northern Indian village of Hariharganj recently arrested 26 local Christians for alleged “forced religious conversion” after the group of Christians was held against its will inside a church by a Hindu mob, the British Christian Asian Association (BCAA) reported on its website on Monday, noting that the Hindu mob faced no criminal charges in connection with the incident
El Salvador’s Legislative Assembly approved on Tuesday a law to expedite the construction of new prisons, El Salvador’s La Prensa Gráfica newspaper reported, noting the legislation aims to help accommodate some of the 13,573 alleged gang members arrested by police in the country over the past month as part of an unprecedented crime crackdown.
South Korea President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol has invited 41,000 guests to attend his inauguration ceremony on May 10, Yonhap News reported on Tuesday, noting Yoon’s team recently expanded his guestlist beyond what was previously planned in light of South Korea dropping almost all Chinese coronavirus-related social gathering restrictions on Monday.
Taiwan’s government-funded Chinese Television System (CTS) accidentally broadcast a running news ticker on Wednesday morning falsely declaring Chinese forces had launched a military invasion of New Taipei City, the Taipei Times reported on Thursday.
The Russian Embassy in Ethiopia’s official Twitter page issued a statement on Tuesday thanking Ethiopia’s government and its citizens for their “solidarity and support” of Russia’s latest war with Ukraine.
Indonesian police recently arrested Dirjen Daglu, the director-general of foreign trade at the Indonesian Trade Ministry, for his alleged involvement in a corruption scheme that saw crude palm oil meant for cooking illegally exported out of Indonesia during the nation’s ongoing cooking oil shortage, Indonesian news website Coconuts Jakarta reported on Tuesday.
Chinese state media on Tuesday reportedly deleted an article published on Monday in which China’s top coronavirus expert, Zhong Nanshan, argued that China needs to abandon the ruling Communist Party’s Chinese coronavirus policy of “zero-Covid” and join the rest of the world in “reopening” to live a post-pandemic life, the South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported.
Militants of the outlawed Nigerian separatist group known as the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) perpetrated a deadly armed attack on both Nigerian soldiers and civilians on Easter Sunday in southern Nigeria’s Imo state, Nigeria’s Premium Times online newspaper reported on Tuesday.
Twin bomb blasts targeted a boys’ secondary school in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Tuesday, killing at least six people and wounding roughly 24 others, the Kabul-based Tolo News reported.
Shanghai on Saturday issued an edict allowing local factories to resume production — which had been halted in recent days due to a city-wide Chinese coronavirus lockdown — as long as “workers live on-site,” China’s state-run Global Times reported on Sunday.
South Korea’s government on Monday dropped nearly all pandemic-related social gathering restrictions in an effort “to move on from the COVID-19 [Chinese coronavirus] pandemic,” Yonhap News reported, two days after Japan’s government announced the country “no longer needs to fully stop social activities” due to the disease.
A Muslim mob in the southwestern Indian city of Hubbali stoned a local police station on Saturday after becoming enraged over the station’s handling of a local Hindu resident who changed his Whatsapp profile photo to a photoshopped pro-Hindu image, India’s the Wire news website reported on Sunday.
China’s ruling Communist Party strategically labeled expanding nationwide Chinese coronavirus restrictions over the weekend as “temporary controls of social activities” after some residents in certain affected cities, such as Xi’an, reportedly “panicked” after first learning of the movement restrictions, China’s state-run Global Times acknowledged on Saturday.
Christians living in countries hostile to Christianity often face increased fears for their personal safety in the run-up to the Easter holiday, Mike Gore, the CEO of Open Doors Australia and New Zealand (an organization that aids persecuted Christians) wrote in an op-ed for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) on Thursday.
Shanghai’s Chinese coronavirus lockdown, which began in full on April 5 and applies to all of the city’s roughly 26 million residents, has caused “doubt, anxiety and fatigue” among the financial hub’s populace, China’s state-run Global Times acknowledged on Friday.
The U.S. State Department on Thursday announced plans for a potential arms sale to Nigeria’s government worth $997 million that would include the transfer of 12 AH-1Z attack helicopters, the U.S. Defense Security Operation Agency (DSCA) reported on its official website.
China’s People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) recently began deploying its most powerful stealth fighter jet, the J-20, to patrol the disputed East China Sea and South China Sea as part of “routine training sessions,” China’s state-run Global Times reported on Wednesday.
A cable-car accident in eastern India’s Jharkhand state on Sunday — which left dozens of frightened passengers hanging mid-air for 40 consecutive hours — turned deadly after two people fell to their deaths during subsequent helicopter rescue missions and a third person died from injuries sustained inside one of the carriages, the Indian Express reported Thursday.
Recent reports by Israeli and international media suggesting the Chinese Embassy in Israel gifted thermal coffee mugs containing hidden spyware to Israel’s government on the occasion of the upcoming Jewish Passover holiday are “baseless rumors,” the official website of the Chinese Embassy in Israel claimed on Wednesday.
Police in western India’s Maharashtra state recently arrested four men for allegedly “gang-raping” a Bengal monitor lizard, the Press Trust of India (PTI) reported on Thursday, noting an official for the Maharashtra Forest Department confirmed the group’s arrest on Wednesday.
Amnesty International reported Wednesday that 109 women remain unaccounted eight years after the Nigerian jihadist group Boko Haram kidnapped 276 mostly Christian schoolgirls from a state-run secondary school in northeastern Nigeria’s Chibok village.
Courts across the Malaysian states of Sabah, Sarawak, and the national capital city of Kuala Lumpur have used an Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) system to determine and assign sentences in criminal cases since February 2020, with the pilot program set to end by April 2022, the digital news platform Mashable Southeast Asia reported on Wednesday.