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The eastern DR Congo city of Goma was eerily deserted on Friday after nearly 400,000 of its inhabitants fled following warnings that nearby Mount Nyiragongo volcano may erupt again. The authorities geared for a major humanitarian effort, centered on Sake, around 25 kilometers (15 miles) west of the city, where …

Manuel Ellis, 33, was restrained by the neck while another officer fired a stun gun to his chest in March 2020. Two policemen were charged with murder and a third with manslaughter in the death of Manuel Ellis, a Black man who was shot with a stun gun, beaten, and …

Malaysia is battling a rapidly escalating coronavirus outbreak that has strained the country’s healthcare system. Malaysian Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin has announced a nationwide “total lockdown” starting in June as coronavirus infections in the country surged to record levels. Muhyiddin said the stricter lockdown from June 1 to 14 was …

Palestinians, legal experts, and activists note a worrying shift in the number of children being arrested as police announce ‘Operation Law and Order’. Thirteen-year-old Mohammed Saadi was kidnapped, blindfolded, beaten, and threatened with a gun to his head by five men in his hometown of Umm al-Fahem. It was May …

Saudi Arabia has acknowledged that it has constructed a military base on an island in the Bab al-Mandab strait to fight the Sana’a-based government. In a Thursday statement carried by the Saudi Press Agency, an official said all equipment currently present on Yemen’s volcanic Mayyun Island is under the control …

President Tayyip Erdogan inaugurated an imposing new mosque in Istanbul on Friday, fulfilling a decades-old goal and stamping a religious identity on the landmark Taksim Square in the heart of Turkey’s largest city. The Taksim mosque and its 30-metre high dome loom symbolically over a monument to the foundation of …

Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko flew into Russia on Friday to hold talks with President Vladimir Putin amid an uproar in Europe over the dramatic grounding of a passenger jet in Minsk and the arrest of a dissident blogger. The talks in the Black Sea city of Sochi were organised before …

A man stabbed and badly wounded a policewoman in the town of La Chapelle-Sur-Erdre in western France on Friday, and he later died following a shoot-out with officers, the national gendarmerie force said. The assailant was cornered after a manhunt that involved two police helicopters and more than 200 officers, …

The United Nations refugee agency voiced deep concern on Friday at reports of soldiers taking hundreds of people away from displacement camps in the Tigray region of Ethiopia earlier this week, saying such sites should be a safe haven. Three aid workers and a doctor told Reuters this week that …

President Bashar Assad has been reelected to a fourth term with over 95% of the votes cast, defeating two challengers – including a former senior official of a rebel coalition, Syrian authorities have announced. Turnout in Wednesday’s election was 78%, with Assad winning over 13 million votes, according to Hammouda …

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen says her country will be careful in how it decides to lift sanctions from Iran if current talks in Austria on reviving the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, better known as JCPOA, bear fruit. Yellen made the remarks on Thursday while answering questions about Iran and …

The Associated Press reported earlier in the day that the Biden administration had informed Russia it had no intent to return the United States in the Open Skies treaty, which provided surveillance flights in both countries. Washington has notified Moscow that it would not return to the Open Skies Treaty, …

The issue has been described as one of the loose ends of the Brexit deal. Being a British overseas territory, Gibraltar shares a border with Spain, an EU and Schengen area member. To avoid a hard border, London and Madrid struck a deal in December that, among other things, stipulates …

Peaceful mass protests in Colombian cities, which were re-convened by the national strike committee, escalated into violent clashes with special forces and left dozens of people injured, the Red Cross said. “The Red Cross has assisted 139 people in the middle of the demonstrations in Bogota, mostly in the Yomasa …

Austria on Thursday slammed Russia after it refused to allow an Austrian Airlines flight to be rerouted to avoid Belarusian airspace, resulting in the Vienna-Moscow service being cancelled. “Based on a recommendation by the EU Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), Austrian Airlines has suspended flights through Belarusian airspace until further notice. …

A Russian court on Thursday fined Twitter 19 million roubles ($259,000) for failing to delete content considered illegal by Moscow, in the latest episode of a long-running dispute between Russia and the social network operator. Twitter has been subjected to a punitive slowdown in Russia since March, part of a …

Dry weather this year raises the risk of severe fires in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest and Pantanal wetlands, scientists say, warning that drought could fuel the destruction of biomes critical to curbing climate change. Last year, dry weather helped fuel record fires in the Pantanal, while the Amazon experienced the worst …

The United Nations Human Rights Council agreed on Thursday to launch an international investigation into crimes committed during the 11-day conflict between Israel and the Palestinians in Gaza. By a vote of 24 states in favour, 9 against, with 14 abstentions, the 47-member forum adopted a resolution brought by the …

An Iranian official has rejected speculation that the results of the country’s upcoming presidential election could influence the negotiations in Vienna on a potential revival of the 2015 nuclear deal, saying it is in fact the United States’ actions, not the vote, that determine the course of the talks. “The …

Amnesty International has sharply criticized the planned eviction of several dozen Palestinian families from their homes in the occupied East Jerusalem al-Quds neighborhood of Silwan as “another illustration of Israel’s criminal policy of forced displacement of Palestinians.” Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa in the London-based organization, Saleh …