ANKARA, Turkey – Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has thrown a spanner in the works of Sweden and Finland’s historic decisions to seek NATO membership, declaring that he cannot allow them to join due to their alleged support of Kurdish militants and other groups that Ankara says threaten its national security. NATO Secretary General Jens … Read more
COVID cases continued to rise across the US on Monday and were trending at the highest levels seen since late November around the time that South African scientists first identified the highly transmissible omicron variant which quickly became dominant around the world. Sine then, the BA.2 variant of omicron, and two other subvariants named BA.2.12 … Read more
Janie Morisette taught school in Hardin, Montana for 32 years before retiring in 2019. Her longtime home, with five bedrooms, 2.5 baths, and an attached garage, was too much for a 72-year-old. She and her daughter, who lives in St. Paul, Minnesota, decided that Morisette would move to St. Paul and her daughter’s backyard in … Read more
BERLIN – The United States is poised to remove five extremist groups, all believed to be defunct, from its list of foreign terrorist organizations, including several that once posed significant threats, killing hundreds if not thousands of people across Asia, Europe and the Middle East. Although the groups are inactive, the decision is politically sensitive … Read more
SEOUL, South Korea – Six people have died and 350,000 have been treated for a fever that has spread “explosively” across North Korea, state media said Friday, a day after the country acknowledged a COVID-19 outbreak for the first time in the pandemic. North Korea probably does not have sufficient COVID-19 tests and said it … Read more
KYIV, Ukraine – A 21-year-old Russian soldier went on trial Friday in Kyiv for the killing of an unarmed Ukrainian civilian, marking the first war crime prosecution of a member of the Russian military from 11 weeks of bloodshed in Ukraine. The soldier, a captured member of a tank unit is accused of shooting a … Read more
JERUSALEM – Veteran Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was shot and killed while covering an Israeli military raid in the occupied West Bank town of Jenin early Wednesday. The broadcaster and a reporter who was wounded in the incident blamed Israel forces. The Israeli army initially raised the possibility that Abu Akleh might have … Read more
Jared Kushner’s new private-equity fund plans to invest millions of dollars of Saudi Arabia’s money in Israel startups, according to people familiar with the investment plan, in a sign of warming ties between two historic rivals. Affinity Partners, which has raised more than $ 3 billion, including a $ 2 billion commitment from the kingdom’s … Read more
Jared Kushner’s new private-equity fund plans to invest millions of dollars of Saudi Arabia’s money in Israel startups, according to people familiar with the investment plan, in a sign of warming ties between two historic rivals. Affinity Partners, which has raised more than $ 3 billion, including a $ 2 billion commitment from the kingdom’s … Read more
EU officials have proposed a ban on insured ships that carry Russian oil, a move aimed at blocking Russia’s access to global oil markets and the revenues that have fueled its military invasion of Ukraine. “In effect, it would be a very strong hindrance to export Russian crude,” said Lars Barstad, chief executive of Frontline … Read more
