World

NATO defence ministers looked to reinvigorate ties Wednesday as they held their first talks since US President Joe Biden took office after four years of tensions under Donald Trump. Key on the agenda at the two-day virtual conference is the future of NATO’s 9,600-strong support mission in Afghanistan after Trump sidelined allies and struck a deal with the Taliban to pull out troops. Biden’s administration is reviewing whether to stick to a looming May 1 deadline to withdraw or risk a bloody backlash from the insurgents by staying. New US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin is not set to make any…

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, charged with defaming a World War II veteran, stands inside a glass cell during a court hearing in Moscow on February 5, 2021. (Photo by Handout / Moscow’s Babushkinsky district court press service / AFP) / Europe’s rights court told Russia on Wednesday to immediately release jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, saying his life was in danger in prison. Navalny, President Vladimir Putin’s most outspoken opponent, was arrested and jailed upon returning to Russia last month following months of treatment in Germany for a nerve agent poisoning that he blames on the Kremlin. The Strasbourg-based…

World Health Organization PHOTO: Reuters<br />The United States will pay more than $200 million to the World Health Organization by the end of the month after reversing Donald Trump’s plan to withdraw, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday. The sum amounts to the commitments the United States had made to the global health body, to which it has been the largest donor. “This is a key step forward in fulfilling our financial obligations as a WHO member and it reflects our renewed commitment to ensuring the WHO has the support it needs to lead the global response to the…

(FILES) This file photo taken on March 22, 2020 shows Australia’s Prime Minister Scott Morrison reacting during a press conference at Australia’s Parliament House in Canberra. – A former Australian government staffer has said she was raped in a minister’s office in parliament and failed by her bosses after coming forward, prompting an apology from Morrison on February 16, 2021. (Photo by DAVID GRAY / AFP) Australia Prime Minister Scott Morrison was under mounting pressure Wednesday after a former government staffer who said she was raped in parliament accused the government of revealing sensitive details of the case. Critics have…

A protester holds up a sign calling for the release of detained Myanmar civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi during a demonstration against the military coup in Naypyidaw on February 16, 2021. (Photo by STR / AFP)Myanmar experienced a “near-total internet shutdown” for the third night in a row, a monitoring group said early Wednesday, plunging the country into an information blackout amid protests against the military junta. Since the military staged a coup on February 1 and ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi from power, it has imposed several internet shutdowns. The last two nights have seen the internet…

A Ukrainian blogger popular for his pro-Russia views was charged with treason on Tuesday, as Kiev ramps up efforts to stamp out what it says is Kremlin propaganda. The post-Soviet country says it has become a regular target of Russian misinformation since 2014 when Moscow annexed the Crimean peninsula and backed separatists in eastern Ukraine. Former journalist Anatoliy Shariy, 42, is suspected of treason and fuelling national, ethnic or religious tension, Ukraine’s SBU security service said in a statement. The charges carry a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison. Shariy, who now lives in Spain, left Ukraine in 2012…

A senior Democratic congressman sued former President Donald Trump Tuesday, accusing him of violating the 19th century "Ku Klux Klan Act" by supporting the January 6 attack on the US Capitol. Bennie Thompson accused Trump, his lawyer Rudy Giuliani, and extremist groups the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers of violating the 1871 act by supporting efforts to stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden as the new US president. Thompson, who is Black and the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, cited a law originally created to protect the rights of African Americans after the Civil War and the end…

UNHCR staff assess the needs of forcibly displaced people in Busumba village after they fled Pinga in North Kivu province, October 2020 PHOTO: UNHCR/Francine Mutabataba More than 2,000 civilians were killed in three eastern DR Congo provinces in 2020, mostly by armed groups, the United Nations said Tuesday as it voiced alarm over ongoing attacks. UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, said sites for forcibly displaced people in North Kivu in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo had been coming under assault. “The UN Refugee Agency is alarmed at ongoing atrocities carried out by armed groups in eastern DRC, which…

This picture taken on February 11, 2021 and released from North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on February 12, 2021 shows North Korean leader Kim Jong Un attending a performance celebrating the Lunar New Year in North Korea. (Photo by – / KCNA VIA KNS / AFP) / South Korea OUT / / North Korean hackers tried to break into the computer systems of pharmaceutical giant Pfizer in a search for information on a coronavirus vaccine and treatment technology, South Korea’s spy agency said Tuesday, according to reports. The impoverished, nuclear-armed North has been under self-imposed isolation since…

A man receives a vaccine against Ebola from a nurse outside the Afia Himbi Health Center on July 15, 2019 in Goma. – Authorities in Democratic Republic of Congo have appealed for calm after a preacher fell ill with Ebola in the eastern city of Goma, the first recorded case of the disease in the region’s urban hub in a nearly year-old epidemic. (Photo by Pamela TULIZO / AFP) Health workers in eastern DR Congo have begun an Ebola vaccination drive after four cases, two of them fatal, surfaced just three months after the country’s last outbreak of the disease,…