Top World News
Pakistani forces end 20-hour standoff with militants in the northwest
Pakistani security forces on Saturday ended a standoff with militants holed up inside a police compound in northwestern Pakistan, officials said.
Congo begins Ebola vaccinations for health workers in the epicenter of the outbreak
Congo on Saturday began vaccinating healthcare staff against Ebola in Bunia, the epicenter of the fastest-growing outbreak of the disease in history as they are "particularly exposed and deeply involved in the response," the provincial governor said.
GOP senator says Russian oligarch paying for Trump wedding weekend is 'corruption'
A Republican senator on Friday accused the Trump family of being involved in "corruption" and provided a bleak view of the economy.
Dutch riot police break up far-right protest in The Hague after violence erupts
Dutch riot police dispersed several hundred far-right protesters in The Hague on Saturday after violence erupted and local authorities banned a planned march in the city against immigration and asylum policies.
Nobel laureate Narges Mohammadi says Iranians are paying the price for war
Iranians are suffering as economic misery and internal repression leave "no room for people to breathe" after 1 1/2 years of wars and ongoing U.S. sanctions, the country's most prominent human rights activist has told The Associated Press.
Russian election observer loses consciousness during arrest by police, opposition party says
Russia's liberal opposition Yabloko party said that one of its election observers lost consciousness while being arrested by police at a St. Petersburg polling station on Saturday, the second day of a tightly controlled parliamentary election.
Survivors recount panic and struggle to breathe in Nigerian prison cell where 37 died
Police fire teargas as protests break out in city of Minna after deaths of suspected illegal goldminers, many of whom were childrenSurvivors from a prison cell in Nigeria where 37 suspected illegal goldminers died while in the custody of a paramilitary group this week have recounted their panic and struggle for breath, as police on Friday fired teargas at people protesting against the deaths and imposed an overnight curfew in the city of Minna.The victims – many of whom were children – were found dead on Thursday in the cells of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), which had raided suspected illegal goldmines and locked up dozens of miners in the city, the state capital of the mineral-rich state of Niger. Continue reading...
Brazil’s Lula announces higher welfare payments and free weight-loss jabs ahead of election
Critics say moves from leftwing incumbent president are electorally motivated two weeks before Brazil’s electionsBrazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has announced a 15% increase in the country’s main cash-transfer programme for poor families, as well as free weight-loss jabs, prompting criticism from opponents who say the moves are electorally motivated just two weeks before the presidential election.On 4 October, the leftwing incumbent will face the far-right senator Flávio Bolsonaro, son of the former president Jair Bolsonaro, who has been gaining ground in recent weeks. Continue reading...
Classified stealth tech lands in Hong Kong after bizarre Pentagon blunder: report
Congressional investigators are scrambling to explain how F-35 jet parts loaded with classified stealth tech vanished into Hong Kong on Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's watch.The parts have been missing since June, Politico reported on Friday. A shipment of F-35 components headed from Australia to the U.S. for repairs was mysteriously "rerouted mid-Pacific" and turned up in Hong Kong instead, three people familiar with the matter said. It's reportedly still not clear "who has possession of it now.""The shipment included one of the jet’s canopies, which covers the cockpit and contains stealth technology that only the U.S. and its allies have access to," sources told Politico. "An adversary could study the parts and potentially reverse-engineer the prized technology if it had one of the canopies."The mess triggered closed-door briefings for congressional staff starting in June, with more expected. The Pentagon's F-35 Joint Program Office would only confirm it is "aware of a shipment issue of unserviceable F-35 Lightning II components" and said it's working "to retrieve these components, investigate the incident, and place safeguards to avoid a future occurrence."Hong Kong is a Chinese special administrative region, and Beijing has a long, documented history of hacking its way to F-35 secrets, Politico reported. J.J. Gertler, a former House Armed Services Committee staffer, told Politico's Audrey Decker and Mark Satter, "It's no secret that China has been aggressively trying to get F-35 data through electronic espionage, among other means. But even if they already had specifications or other data about the part, possessing a real one can give them even more to go on and can verify or refine whatever they already had learned."Lockheed insisted it "handles every shipment with the utmost diligence," while the State Department declined comment and China's embassy claims "ignorance." The blunder lands amid mounting turmoil inside Hegseth's Pentagon, where whistleblowers describe chaos.
Yemen’s anti-Houthi forces launch inquest into sudden military collapse
Rout raises questions about coordination and morale as some politicians claim billions of dollars were offered to persuade forces to abandon positionA bitter inquest is under way among Yemen’s anti-Houthi forces as to how what was being billed as a decisive assault on Sana’a, the Houthi-controlled capital, suddenly collapsed into a military rout.More than 15 brigades were defeated as the country’s entire west coast fell into Houthi hands. Efforts are now being made to reorganise the anti-Houthi forces representing the UN-recognised Yemeni government in order to capture the Kahbob mountains, a strategic point from which to restrict Houthi forces moving closer to the crucial Bab al-Mandab strait. Continue reading...
British Sikh man granted bail in India nine years after arrest
Jagtar Singh Johal, from Scotland, was arrested after wedding in Punjab on alleged terrorism offencesJagtar Singh Johal, a British Sikh man who was arrested in India in 2017 in connection with alleged terrorism offences, has been granted bail by a Delhi court.Johal, from Scotland, was arrested for his alleged role in funding the Khalistan Liberation Force, which had carried out targeted killings in India’s Punjab region. Continue reading...
Jeers as Trump’s removal from power tied to Hormuz reopening: ‘Sounds like a great deal’
A senior Iranian figure proclaimed Thursday that the Strait of Hormuz would remain closed until “criminal” President Donald Trump is removed from power — and a number of critics voiced support for the demand.Mohammad Baqer Zolqadr, a political adviser to Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, said that the strait would remain closed until both Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were removed from office, a demand that comes as traffic through the critical shipping waterway hit its “lowest level yet” and surging global oil prices break records.“Our fighters will not open the Strait of Hormuz until they bring the criminal Trump and the bloodthirsty Netanyahu down from the seat of power,” Zolqadr said, CBS News reported Thursday.With gas prices in the United States reaching unprecedented heights due to Trump’s deeply unpopular war against Iran — with “the worst still to come,” per The Washington Post — a number of Trump’s critics appeared to embrace Iran’s demands.“Honestly, I'm down with this. F--- it,” wrote Ian Smith, a former GOP congressional candidate from New Jersey and fitness entrepreneur, in a social media post on X.Dash Dobrofsky, a political commentator and writer, also embraced Iran’s terms for the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, writing in a social media post on X to his nearly 200,000 followers: “Not gonna lie, this sounds like a great deal to me.”Others flagged how Iran’s new demand was directly at odds with Trump’s oft-repeated insistence that Iran was “begging” to make a deal with his administration.“Trump has said for (how many months now) that Iran is begging for a deal. Doesn't seem like it, by their actions, or their words,” wrote Chris Rossini, a senior fellow and media host at the Ron Paul Institute.And Laura Robinson, a religious podcaster and scholar, quipped that it was “kinda cool” that Iran "believed" in Americans enough to remove Trump from power to make such a demand.Iran just came out and said the Strait of Hormuz will remain closed until both Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are removed from power.Not gonna lie, this sounds like a great deal to mehttps://t.co/nyuc7GSa3e— Dash Dobrofsky (@DashDobrofsky) September 17, 2026
