BERLIN – The United Nations’ refugee agency says 14 Eritrean asylum seekers have been abducted in an attack on a refugee convoy in eastern Sudan. The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees said an armed group in a pickup truck opened fire Thursday on a convoy that was transporting 49 Eritreans …
Read More »
ROME – The nuns at the Marist Sisters religious order are counting their blessings after two sisters were trapped in a hot elevator in Rome for nearly three days before being rescued. A nun who answered the phone Tuesday at the order’s headquarters sighed deeply and said in English: “We …
Read More »
VATICAN CITY – Pope Francis’ newly released teaching document is a wide-ranging look at what he calls an “ecological crisis” destroying our “common home.” The document, or encyclical, titled “Laudato Si,” (Praise Be), is at once a theological treatise, a public policy analysis and a heart-felt plea for personal change. …
Read More »
Stunned by the secular Arab rebellions that have toppled some of the Middle East’s most enduring dictators, Al Qaeda and other violent Muslim extremists are struggling to capitalize on the upheavals that have reshaped the political map of the Middle East. While counterterrorism officials, scholars and analysts disagree about the …
Read More »
A United Nations agency that quietly shipped computers and computer servers to North Korea several months ago apparently was violating restrictions on the equipment’s use imposed by Hewlett-Packard, the U.S.-based maker of the computers and computer servers, which bars any HP equipment from being sent to the communist dictatorship as …
Read More »
MOSCOW – Lawmakers in Russia’s Kremlin-controlled parliament have given tentative approval to a bill that would move up next year’s parliamentary election by three months, a tactic seen by critics as an attempt to weaken the opposition. The lower house voted 339-101 with one abstention Friday to approve the bill …
Read More »
BUJUMBURA, Burundi – An official in Burundi says four people died and at least 30 were wounded in a grenade attack on a bar in the country’s northern region of Ngozi. Ngozi’s Governor Claude Nahayo said Monday three people have been arrested following the overnight attack in which two grenades …
Read More »
MOSCOW – Russian police say 15 people have been killed and eight others injured when a passenger bus and a truck collided on a road in Siberia. The LifeNews website published a photograph of the crash, showing the wreckage of a green bus and a Kamaz truck, which had been …
Read More »
SEOUL, South Korea – South Korea says it has imposed financial sanctions on seven individuals and organizations from Taiwan and Syria after they were linked to weapons trade with North Korea. The list revealed by government officials on Friday included Taiwanese businessman Hsien Tai Tsai who was sentenced to 2 …
Read More »
CAIRO – An Egyptian court will issue its final verdict on July 30 in the re-trial of three Al-Jazeera English journalists on terrorism-related charges. Judge Hassan Farid made the announcement on Monday after defense lawyers wrapped up their arguments in a case that has captured international attention. Canadian national Mohammed …
Read More »