Editor’s Note: This story contains graphic and disturbing descriptions of sexual violence. Within an hour of being arrested by Russian security forces, Roman Shapovalenko was threatened with rape. On August 25, 2022, the day after Ukraine’s Independence Day, he said three armed, masked officers from Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) stormed his home in the southern Ukrainian port city of ...
A volcano in southwestern Iceland erupted Wednesday for the fifth time since December, spewing massive lava flows that threaten to cut off the town of Grindavík and prompting the evacuation of the world-famous Blue Lagoon. Dramatic video and images from the scene showed fountains of red-hot lava shooting into the air along a 3.4-kilometer (two-mile) fissure near Mount Hagafell on ...
Chinese leader Xi Jinping decried “tremendous sufferings” in the Middle East and called for an international peace conference as leaders from Arab nations visit Beijing this week amid mounting global concern over Israel’s war in Gaza. “Since last October, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict has escalated drastically, throwing the people into tremendous sufferings. War should not continue indefinitely. Justice should not be ...
Millions of South Africans are voting in what is expected to be the most pivotal general election since the end of apartheid. For months, polls have shown the ruling African National Congress (ANC) party could lose its majority for the first time since Nelson Mandela led it to power in 1994. While polling can be challenging in South Africa, most ...
Claudia Sheinbaum was campaigning for president in southern Mexico when hooded men approached her car, filming the interaction as they implored her to keep their town from being taken over by gangs. One man said he felt helpless, and that the government had “never done anything for these lands.” They lived in Chiapas, Mexico’s poorest state and an increasingly important territory for criminal organizations ...
France and Germany said Tuesday that Ukraine should be allowed to use their weapons against targets inside Russia from which Moscow attacks Ukraine. Speaking at a news conference alongside German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Tuesday, French President Emmanuel Macron outlined that French weapons sent to Ukraine, including long-range missiles, were permitted to target bases inside Russia. “Ukrainian soil is being attacked ...
The war in Gaza will likely continue through at least the end of the year, an Israeli official warned Wednesday, seeming to dismiss the idea that fighting would end after the military offensive against Hamas in Rafah. Israel’s national security adviser, Tzachi Hanegbi, said the year 2024 has been “defined as a year of combat” by Israel’s war cabinet. “We ...
North Korea has adopted a new strategy to contend with its southern neighbor: sending floating bags of trash containing “filth” across the border, carried by massive balloons. The South Korean military began noticing “large amounts of balloons” arriving from the North starting Tuesday night, detecting more than 150 as of Wednesday morning, according to the country’s Joint Chiefs of Staff ...
At least 45 people were killed and more than 200 others injured after a fire broke out following the Israeli military’s strike on the outskirts of Gaza’s southernmost city, most of them women and children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry and Palestinian medics. Israel’s escalating assault in Rafah – where some 1.3 million Palestinians were taking shelter before Israel began ...
China Coast Guard ships have been in waters around Japanese-controlled islands in the East China Sea for a record 158 consecutive days, according to Tokyo’s latest count released Monday, surpassing the previous record set in 2021. Analysts fear the uninhabited islands, known as the Senkakus in Japan and the Diaoyus in China, have the potential to become a flashpoint for ...