A judge in Honduras recently sentenced Roberto David Castillo, a top business executive and graduate of the US Military Academy at West Point, to 22.5 years in prison for his role in the 2016 murder of Berta Caceres, an indigenous leader and environmental activist. Castillo...
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The Great African War, or the African World War, took place in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo from the late 1990s to the early 2000s. As many as six million people died from violence, disease and malnutrition, the BBC explained. The...
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Thailand recently decriminalized marijuana, becoming the first country in Asia to embrace a new attitude toward the plant that the locals refer to as ganja. The Southeast Asian country will likely not become a pot-focused tourist haven anytime soon, however, the Washington Post cautioned. While marijuana...
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The gang warfare that has claimed more than 230 lives in Haiti recently has also threatened to cut off energy imports vital to transportation and electricity generation. As Agence France-Presse reported, the black market in gasoline in the Caribbean nation has become massive while gas...
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For months, rumors have spread in Ukraine about locals collaborating with the Russians. As the Washington Post reported, patriotic Ukrainians believe only a treasonous neighbor would give Russian troops information about where residents might store their guns or who among them has the most wealth....
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When Sri Lanka defaulted on its debt in May, as the BBC reported, the resulting loss in confidence in the government led a mob to occupy the presidential palace and mansion. Photos in National Public Radio captured Sri Lankans hanging out in sumptuous offices, partying...
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A court in Sudan recently sentenced a woman to death by stoning on adultery charges. The cruel decision, the first in a decade, is bad enough, the Guardian reported. But some Sudanese worry that it heralds a new era of female oppression and human rights...
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It’s as if Britons are girding for the hangover that is sure to follow the end of the heady, chaotic government of Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Everyone is wondering what will happen to Britain and the ruling Conservative Party after the departure of the blonde, clownish...
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Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa was once a war hero, known for crushing the Tamil Tigers and putting an end to a brutal 26-year civil war and setting a course to make the country another Asian Tiger. But last week, he was forced to escape the...
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The Russian republic of Chechnya is intimately intertwined with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Having battled Russian forces in an unsuccessful bid for independence in the 1990s, Chechens know what it’s like to be on the receiving end of Moscow’s military might. But from that experience, they...
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Police in Papua New Guinea recently detained the son of the country’s prime minister and some construction company executives as they were traveling to a province where parliamentary elections were about to start. The executives were carrying around $440,000 in cash in a suitcase. All...
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Recently, some British tourists in Aleppo marveled at how rebel snipers a few years ago fired on Syrian government troops from the very same positions where archers nearly a millennia ago defended the ancient Citadel of Aleppo from Christian Crusaders. European tourists are returning to Syria. These...
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Fernando José Redondo Caballero, 19, and Alejandro Miguel Andino Caballero, 22, could “barely contain their excitement” about migrating from Honduras to the United States, the Daily News wrote. One had almost completed his degree in business. The other had an economics degree. Yet neither could...
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On Friday, a gunman murdered former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe, a towering figure in Japan. The seismic impact of that killing will linger for years to come, a Bloomberg opinion piece noted. This is a country where violence is so rare that most people can remember...
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Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has already resulted in proposals to expand NATO. Now, in a move to counter Russian threats, the European Union might also add Ukraine, Moldova and, eventually, Georgia, three former Soviet republics where Russian President Vladimir Putin has long sought to increase...
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Along with other activism to promote democracy and respect for the law in his native Russia, Sergei Davidis spoke in the defense of Alexei Navalny in court earlier this year. He told the i (inews.co.uk), a British news outlet, that he knew the main political...
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The president-elect of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, was in jail when his leftist guerilla movement, M-19, stormed the Palace of Justice in the South American country’s capital, Bogotá, in 1985. They launched the attack with the financial backing of drug lord Pablo Escobar in hopes of...
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Israel is set to hold its fifth election in less than four years, a surfeit of democracy that is not likely to result in much change unless you are former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu was Israel’s longest-serving leader, the BBC explained. He won four elections...
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The leader of Senegal’s opposition, Yewwi Askan Wi, asked his fellow citizens to bang pots and pans in the streets to show their displeasure with the regime of President Macky Sall. The result was a lot of banging. “I'm here to protest for justice," Ibrahima Soumare...
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Scotland’s first minister and leader of the ruling Scottish National Party, Nicola Sturgeon, wants to precipitate a political fight over Scottish independence from the rest of the United Kingdom – she thinks she and the country’s independence cause have been stuck in neutral. A dust-up...
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