Month: July 2019

Thailand's new civilian government will retain the power to arbitrarily detain critics despite the imminent easing of junta-era security controls, prompting warnings from rights groups of enduring "martial law". Nearly 2,000 people have been tried in military courts since now-prime minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha seized power…

Wealthy American financier Jeffrey Epstein, charged with sex trafficking in underage girls, is now confined to a cell in a fortress-like concrete tower jail that has been criticized by inmates and lawyers for harsh conditions. After his arrest on Saturday at New Jersey’s Teterboro Airport…

Spain’s Socialists said on Tuesday they would give up trying to install their leader Pedro Sanchez as prime minister if he fails to win two investiture votes this month, raising the prospect of yet another parliamentary election. Those comments compounded the tension in already fraught…

Mexico's moderate Finance Minister Carlos Urzua resigned on Tuesday with a letter that shocked markets by citing "extremism" in economic policy, before President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador quickly named a well-regarded deputy minister to replace him. In the unusually strongly worded resignation note made public…

A U.S. federal appeals court has ruled President Donald Trump cannot silence critics on his Twitter account, maintaining that blocking them violates the Constitution's right to free speech. The 2nd U.S. Court of Appeals in Manhattan ruled in a 3-0 decision Tuesday the First Amendment…

Lawmakers must pass legislation easing "abhorrent conditions" facing children held at the southern border, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Monday as she tried taking the offensive on an issue that badly split Democrats and has raised questions about their unity on other issues.   Pelosi,…

Brazil's far-right President Jair Bolsonaro is among the least popular since the country's return to democracy three decades ago, but his rating in a poll released on Monday showed his numbers stabilizing. The Datafolha polling institute found that 33% of respondents said Bolsonaro was doing…

Aficionados of Western classical music have carved out a niche for themselves in Iran, where cultural expression remains tightly controlled by strict rules imposed after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. And perhaps surprisingly, musicians in their 20s and 30s perform for overwhelmingly young audiences. Last week,…

The first Democratic presidential debate for the 2020 elections brought a decades-old civil rights issue back into the public spotlight: whether to bus children to racially integrate schools. One of the most defining moments of the debate came when U.S. Senator Kamala Harris challenged former…

When people are recovering from an illness or injury, they often don't think of nutrition, but it may be key to getting their health back. When Monika McComb returned home from the hospital, she didn't think about nutrition as being essential for a full recovery.…

A 50-member delegation of Afghan elites is in Qatar for peace talks with Taliban leaders, with the hopes of ending the 18-year-long conflict in Afghanistan. The two-day summit, facilitated by Germany and Qatar, is an “historic opportunity for all of them to bridge trust deficit,…

Iraq's security and paramilitary forces began Sunday a military operation along the border with Syria aimed at clearing the area of Islamic State group militants, the military said in a statement. Although Iraq declared victory against IS in July 2017, the extremists have turned into…

She vowed to stay out of politics and even dropped the French far right's signature name - Le Pen - from her moniker. But Marion Marechal, a former star lawmaker who's still only in her 20s, is now tip-toeing back into the political arena, and…

African leaders met on Sunday to launch a continental free-trade zone that if successful would unite 1.3 billion people, create a $3.4 trillion economic bloc and usher in a new era of development. After four years of talks, an agreement to form a 55-nation trade…

A life-size rough wooden sculpture of U.S. first lady Melania Trump was unveiled Friday near her hometown of Sevnica in southeastern Slovenia.  Commissioned by Berlin-based American artist Brad Downey and carved with a chainsaw by local folk artist Ales Zupevc, the statue serves as a perhaps wry accompaniment…

An apparent gas explosion at a shopping plaza in Plantation, Florida, injured several people on Saturday, authorities and local media reported. Video posted to Twitter showed the force of the blast scattered debris across a parking lot and blew out several windows at a nearby…

A war monitor and first responders group say an airstrike has killed at least 13 people in a village in northwestern Syria. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says the dead, most of them internally displaced persons, include seven children and three women. They died…

Iraq is celebrating the UNESCO World Heritage Committee's decision to name the historic city of Babylon a World Heritage Site in a vote in Azerbaijan. Friday's vote comes after Iraq bid for years for Babylon to be added to the list of World Heritage Sites.…

The U.S. coal industry sank deeper this week as the nation's sixth-largest coal company declared bankruptcy. Though the Trump administration has taken measures aimed at supporting coal, six of the 10 largest coal companies have gone bankrupt since 2014. Blackjewel LLC's Chapter 11 filing comes just…

Marilyne Tatang, 23, crossed nine borders in two months to reach Mexico from the West African nation of Cameroon, fleeing political violence after police torched her house, she said. She plans soon to take a bus north for four days and then cross a 10th…

America’s annual Independence Day is celebrated a bit differently in Washington, D.C., this year, with a display of military might and a speech about patriotism by U.S. President Donald Trump. The event draws Trump supporters, as well as protesters who accuse the president of politicizing…

A single cigarette may have started the April fire that destroyed much of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris.  Flames tore through the global tourist destination as firefighters struggled to find and extinguish their source.  German authorities want to make sure what happened in France, doesn't…

The amount of sea ice around Antarctica has plunged from a record high to a record low in just three years, according to a new report released this week by the U.S. space agency NASA. Faith Lapidus reports scientists are not sure why. ...

Vietnamese manufacturers should use domestically-sourced raw materials to avoid incurring U.S. tariffs, Vietnam's foreign ministry said on Thursday, days after Washington said it would impose large duties on some steel products shipped through the Southeast Asian country. The U.S. Commerce Department said on Tuesday it…

When David landed an assembly line job at Volkswagen’s Bratislava factory, his colleagues congratulated him on securing a well-paid position he could ride to retirement. Two years later, he is among the 3,000 workers being laid off at the plant that produces the Volkswagen Touareg…

India said on Thursday it needs $330 billion in investments over the next decade to power its renewable energy dream, but coal would remain central to its electricity generation. The energy guzzling country wants to raise its renewable energy capacity to 500 Gigawatts (GW), or…

The White House is blasting a Seattle judge's ruling that says the Trump administration can't indefinitely lock up migrants who are seeking asylum without giving them a chance to be released on bond. U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman on Tuesday blocked a new administration policy…

This story originated in VOA's Ukrainian service. A spate of GPS disruptions at Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion Airport has confirmed what several prominent tech analysts have long feared: that Western nations, and the U.S. in particular, are unusually vulnerable to foreign meddling with location-based technology.    Most…