Fed-up Ecuadoreans granted their president more powers to crack down on crime – including the deployment of troops on the streets – in a referendum Sunday that underscores the desperation in the country that is battered by gang violence, the Wall Street Journal reported. Early returns...
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Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian denied that Israel was behind a strike in central Iran this week, an attack that heightened worry over a regional war breaking out, while the United States approved a new aid package to the Jewish nation over the weekend, NBC...
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Tens of thousands of people protested across the Canary Islands over the weekend, calling on authorities to revise the Spanish archipelago’s tourism strategy over concerns that the model has made life unaffordable for the locals and is not sustainable for the environment, the Guardian reported. Demonstrators...
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Togo’s parliament approved a new constitution over the weekend that critics and opposition lawmakers described as “a coup d’état,” with the aim of keeping long-time President Faure Gnassingbé in power, the BBC reported. The new charter will transform the small West African nation from a presidential...
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Venezuelan officials criticized the United States’ decision this week to reimpose oil sanctions, after Washington said that the government of President Nicolas Maduro has failed to allow “an inclusive and competitive election” to take place this year, the Financial Times reported. In October, the Biden administration...
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Indonesian authorities shut down a provincial airport and evacuated hundreds of people this week following the eruption Wednesday of Mount Ruang in the north of the archipelago, prompting officials to also issue tsunami warnings, the New York Times reported. The volcanic eruption on a remote island...
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Italian lawmakers passed an amendment this week to allow anti-abortion activists to enter family planning clinics, a move that supporters hailed but the opposition and pro-choice advocates called a “heavy” blow to women’s rights, the Washington Post reported. The amendment is part of the right-wing government’s...
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British lawmakers voted in favor of a pioneering bill that would prevent individuals born after 2009 from purchasing cigarettes, a piece of legislation that observers have described as one of strictest in the world, the BBC reported. On Tuesday, the bill, proposed by Conservative Prime Minister...
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Venezuela and Honduras took diplomatic actions against Ecuador this week in response to a recent police raid at Mexico’s embassy in the Ecuadorian capital Quito earlier this month, Al Jazeera reported. On Tuesday, Honduran Foreign Relations Minister Enrique Reina announced his country had recalled its charge...
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Georgia’s parliament passed Wednesday the first reading of a bill on “foreign agents” that critics warned could be used to stifle freedoms and move the Caucasus nation further away from its path to join the European Union, Reuters reported. The bill, supported by the ruling Georgian...
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A fire tore through Copenhagen’s Old Stock Exchange on Tuesday, causing the collapse of the structure’s iconic spire and severely damaging one of the Danish capital’s oldest buildings, the Associated Press reported. Danish officials said the fire began Tuesday morning in the 17th-century building’s copper-covered roof...
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Unprecedented heavy rains unleashed devastating floods across southern Russia, Central and South Asia this week, claiming dozens of lives and displacing tens of thousands, and prompting anger from residents and concerns about climate change among scientists, CBS News reported. Lightning and torrential rains killed more than...
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A new study found that unless Japan revises its laws to permit separate surnames for married couples, every Japanese citizen could have the surname “Sato” within the next 500 years, the Guardian reported. Led by Hiroshi Yoshida of Tohoku University, the study projects a concerning trend...
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Australians were left reeling on Monday after a second mass stabbing in three days in the country saw a priest and four worshippers injured in a church in a Sydney suburb, on the heels of a rampage that left six dead at a shopping mall,...
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Singapore’s prime minister of 20 years said he would step down next month to relinquish the post to his hand-picked successor, marking the end of an era while also preserving continuity in the prosperous city-state, the Wall Street Journal reported. Lee Hsien Loong, 72, has led...
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Hundreds of people who were injured or lost relatives in a 2017 bombing at a concert hall in Manchester launched legal action against British intelligence on Sunday after an inquiry found the attack could have been prevented, the Guardian reported. Observers said it was the first...
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Iran led its first-ever direct attack on Israel over the weekend, a retaliatory drone and missile strike that was contained by Israel and its Western allies, and threatened to widen the ongoing war in Gaza into a regional conflict, Reuters reported. The attack, involving more than...
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Protest broke out in Niger’s capital of Niamey over the weekend, with demonstrators demanding the departure of US troops, after the ruling junta shifted its strategy by ending a military accord with the US and welcomed its first delegation of Russian military personnel, Reuters reported. The...
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Poland enacted a ban against homework this month that has left children rejoicing but some teachers and parents are concerned, the Associated Press reported. Under the decree, teachers are no longer to give required homework to kids in the first to third grades. In grades four...
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A Vietnamese property tycoon was sentenced to death on Thursday for her role in a fraud case that has caused damages worth $27 billion, a sentence almost unheard of for graft convictions, CBS News reported. A court in Ho Chi Minh City found Truong My Lan,...
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