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By Carlos Rawlins and Lesley Wroughton | CARACAS/WASHINGTON CARACAS/WASHINGTON Venezuela’s opposition sought to keep pressure on President Nicolas Maduro with scattered protests on Monday, but there was relief for the socialist government when the Organisation of American States cancelled a crisis meeting. One group of protesters tried to block a major Caracas highway and another dropped a pile of straw in front of court offices to protest […]

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Fighting corruption in Iraq is such a relentless and thankless job that Hassan al-Yasiri has been trying for nearly a year to quit. -Reuters

By Saad Sayeed | ISLAMABAD ISLAMABAD Pakistan resumed the repatriation of Afghan refugees on Monday, sending nearly 1,200 people back across the heavily guarded northern Torkham border, an official at the United Nation’s refugee body said. Pakistan is home to the world’s second largest refugee population, with a total of 2.5 million Afghans living there. Many have been in Pakistan since the Soviet invasion in 1979. Relations […]

Somali pirates have seized an Indian vessel carrying 11 crew members, the ship’s owner said Monday, the third such hijacking in less than a month as piracy resurges in the country. The “Al Kausar” cargo ship was carrying items such as wheat and sugar from Dubai via Yemen to Somalia’s Bossaso port when it came under attack, owner Isaak Them told AFP. “The vessel was hijacked on […]

By Ulf Laessing | MOSUL, Iraq MOSUL, Iraq Sitting in a wheelchair and wearing sunglasses, pensioner Abdelraziq Abdelkarim enjoys the afternoon sun outside his house in Mosul after a day of rain. He does not flinch when a mortar opens fire just around the corner. His home is on the busiest frontline in the northern Iraqi city just 200 m (yards) from Islamic State positions. Outside his […]

Australia’s house prices are rising at their fastest pace in seven years, igniting fears of an emerging property bubble and prompting regulators to crack down on risky bank lending. New figures on Monday show residential property prices have increased 12.9 per cent in the past 12 months, with prices in Sydney surging 18.9 per cent — the fastest rate of growth in almost 15 years. “Four of […]

When the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and more than 100 media partners began publishing the Panama Papers investigation on April 3, 2016, almost no country was untouched by its revelations. Governments in more than 70 countries have launched over 150 investigations, inquiries, audits and probes into the affairs of thousands of people and corporations linked to Panama Papers. Just last month, Malta’s tax office announced it […]

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With so many respected newsrooms still adjusting to having the president call them “enemy of the American people,” next week’s announcement of the 2017 Pulitzer Prizes feels like a showdown. What will the winning journalism say about the press’ value to the public? We’re about to find out. Pulitzer selections reflect a closed-door, two-step process at New York’s Columbia University, which administers the prizes. Jurors from around […]

The Australian Privacy Foundation (APF) has recommended that the Department of Human services (DHS) reform its automated debt recovery process and bring back the “human” involvement that was replaced with the new data-matching technology. In its submission [PDF] to the Senate Community Affairs References Committee, the APF noted several serious concerns about the automatic data matching system used by Centrelink, citing problems with relying on technology as […]

By Alexandra Ulmer and Alexandra Valencia | QUITO QUITO Leftist government candidate Lenin Moreno claimed victory in Ecuador’s presidential vote on Sunday, bucking a shift to the right in South America, but the conservative challenger asked for a recount as his supporters took to the streets in protest. A Moreno win would come as a relief for Wikileaks founder Julian Assange after Guillermo Lasso vowed to remove […]

By Alexandra Ulmer | QUITO, Ecuador QUITO, Ecuador The Venezuelan Supreme Court may have amended part of its explosive decision to take over the opposition-led congress, but it still gives embattled leftist President Nicolas Maduro broad new powers over the OPEC nation’s vast oil wealth. The reversal on Saturday came after political leaders worldwide and street protestors at home accused the pro-government court of effectively making Maduro […]

The global cyberwarfare scare washed ashore the British isles this weekend after UK nuclear power stations and airports were told to tighten defenses against terrorist attacks in the face of increased threats to electronic security systems, after intelligence agencies concluded terrorists could plant explosives in laptops and mobile phones that won’t be caught by normal security screenings. The Telegraph reports that British security services issued a series […]

Minnesota is reeling under the effects of one of the most dangerous strains of synthetic opioids — carfentanil, which is causing several overdose deaths in the state. Carfentanil, a deadly elephant tranquilizer, is used by doctors to immobilize large animals like elephants for surgery. This opioid has reared its ugly head in the state and has reportedly killed five people. The drug reportedly originates in China, and is 100 […]

By Wa Lone and Simon Lewis | YANGON YANGON Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s party won nearly half of the seats contested in by-elections on Sunday, the first vote since it swept to power a year ago and an early indication of support for her administration amid increased fighting with ethnic armed groups and slower economic growth. Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) won nine […]

Authored by Giulio Meotti via The Gatestone Institute, British multiculturalists are feeding Islamic fundamentalism. Muslims do not need to become the majority in the UK; they just need gradually to Islamize the most important cities. The change is already taking place. British personalities keep opening the door to introducing Islamic sharia law. One of the leading British judges, Sir James Munby, said that Christianity no longer influences […]

Police came knocking on Ahmet Altan’s door at 6am. After searching his house, they bundled the journalist, who is one of Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s fiercest critics, off to jail. Mr Altan has remained behind bars for some 200 days — except for one day when he was released and then rearrested after criticising the government again. And in that time, his lawyers have struggled to […]

By Jonathan Spicer | NEW YORK NEW YORK The Federal Reserve could begin shrinking its $4.5-trillion balance sheet as soon as this year, earlier than most economists expect, New York Fed President William Dudley said on Friday in the central bank’s most definitive comments on the question that looms over financial markets. The hawkish-sounding assertion temporarily pushed the dollar lower and raised yields on longer-dated bonds, and […]

Venezuela’s government-controlled supreme court has reversed its ruling to strip the opposition controlled assembly of legislative powers in an effort to ease tensions amid growing cries of dictatorship. “This controversy is over,” embattled President Nicolás Maduro said, “the constitution has won”. The unexpected move came after a “state security committee”, convened by the socialist Mr Maduro, ordered the court to reconsider. The head of the supreme court […]

Photo Iraqis bathed in a sulfur pond not far from the southern outskirts of Mosul on Saturday. Iraqi forces are pushing to take western Mosul from the Islamic State. Credit Ahmad Gharabli/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images WASHINGTON — Facing mounting pressure over civilian casualties in American airstrikes, the United States-led coalition fighting the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria said on Saturday that it was likely that […]

BAGHDAD Ayad al-Jumaili, believed to be the deputy of Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, has been killed in an air strike, Iraqi State TV said on Saturday, citing Iraqi military intelligence. The U.S.-led anti-Islamic State coalition said it was unable at the moment to confirm the report. Iraqi TV said Jumaili was killed with other Islamic State commanders in a strike carried out by the Iraqi […]

WASHINGTON Four civilians were killed in February by U.S.-led coalition forces in Iraq and Syria, the U.S. military said on Saturday as it updated a tally of accidental deaths in the fight against the Islamic State militants. At least 229 civilians have been unintentionally killed by air strikes since the U.S.-led operation against the militants began almost three years ago, the Pentagon said in a statement. The […]

Paraguay was plunged into a constitutional crisis after congress was stormed and set on fire by protesters, enraged by attempts by President Horacio Cartes to amend the constitution to allow his re-election. Furious protesters, one of whom was killed by police, accused Mr Cartes of engineering a coup, echoing similar cries elsewhere in the region after Venezuela’s government-controlled Supreme Court dissolved congress on Thursday.  What is going […]

BOGOTA A landslide in Colombia’s southwestern border province of Putumayo has left at least 14 people dead and 60 injured, officials said on Saturday. Heavy rains overnight caused several rivers to overflow, sending mud and sediment onto homes and roads in the provincial capital of Mocoa, which has around 100,000 inhabitants. “It is a very critical situation,” Carlos Ivan Marquez, the head of the country’s disaster response […]

I remember the halcyon days when April Fools’ Day was a bit of harmless fun. We’d read fake stories from the newspaper over our cornflakes and have a good chuckle. Fake news was just something that happened once a year. But, those days are gone. We are now living in the age of fake news; where mistruths are presented as truths, and believed at face value. Fake […]

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