News

20 FEBRUARY 2019 (SOURCE: REUTERS) – Thousands of people rallied across France after a surge of anti-Semitic attacks in recent weeks that culminated on Tuesday with vandals daubing swastikas and anti-Jewish slogans on dozens of graves in a Jewish cemetery. Political leaders from all parties, including former Presidents Francois Hollande and Nicolas Sarkozy, gathered in Paris…

19 FEBRUARY 2019 (SOURCE: REUTERS) – Pakistan’s foreign minister appealed to the U.N. Secretary General on Tuesday to help ease tension with India that has escalated sharply following a suicide bomb attack in the Indian part of disputed Kashmir, that India blamed on Pakistan. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, facing an election by May, has warned…

18 FEBRUARY 2019 (SOURCE: REUTERS) – Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Sunday said Saudi Arabia has signed investment agreements worth $20 billion during his high-profile visit to Pakistan, where tensions were flaring up with nuclear-armed rival India. Kicking off his tour of South Asia and China with a far higher Pakistan investment than expected, the…

14 FEBRUARY 2019 (SOURCE: NYT) – In February of 1979, Tehran was in chaos. A cancer-stricken Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, the Western-backed autocrat, had gone into exile in mid-January, leaving behind a rickety regency council. On Feb. 1, Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the godfather of the revolution, returned from exile in Paris. And in the Iranian version…

13 FEBRUARY 2019 (SOURCE: AP) –  Hundreds of demonstrators are gathering in different Sudanese cities, protesting against autocratic President Omar al-Bashir. Tuesday’s demonstrations were called by the Sudanese Professionals Association, an umbrella of independent professional unions. Video footage shows demonstrators gathering at intersections chanting “just fall,” and calling for a “people’s revolution.” The current wave of…

12 FEBRUARY 2019 (SOURCE: AP) – In the main square in the northern Iraqi town of Bartella stands a large cross, one of the few overt signs the town was historically Christian. Nearby, a massive billboard shows Shiite Muslim martyrs alongside a photo of Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini. Posters of Iranian-backed Shiite militiamen killed in fighting with…

11 FEBRUARY 2019 (SOURCE:AP) – Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has been elected chairman of the African Union at the continental body’s summit in Ethiopia. Also at the African Union meeting Sunday, a statue of Ethiopia’s last emperor was unveiled. Afterward a scuffle erupted between security guards for some African leaders and African Union guards, causing…

08 FEBRUARY 2019 (SOURCE: EWN) – British Prime Minister Theresa May came away from a day in an increasingly impatient Brussels on Thursday with a pledge of renewed talks that held out some hope for a new Brexit deal, if no sign of compromise yet. Senior EU officials urged her to grasp an olive branch from…

07 FEBRUARY 2019 (SOURCE: AP) – Central African Republic and 14 rebel groups signed a peace deal on Wednesday even as some expressed alarm about the possible suspension of prosecutions after five years of bloody conflict. The agreement is the eighth since the fighting began in 2013 but the first to emerge from direct dialogue. The…

06 FEBRUARY 2019 (SOURCE: FOX) – President Trump, in his first State of the Union address before a divided Congress, railed against “the politics of revenge” and “partisan investigations” as he appealed for unity at a time when Washington is struggling to break a deadlock over border security funding that threatens to trigger another government shutdown in a matter of days. Touting economic…