An authority linked to the International Monetary Fund, which oversees the world’s monetary system, has launched an international central bank digital currency (CBDC), despite criticism, it will lead to global government control.
British intelligence officials have warned that Ukrainian troops had been forced to withdraw from vital front positions amid a barrage of Russian attacks. The comments came as Britain’s prime minister denounced a video allegedly showing the beheading of a Ukrainian prisoner of war.
Moscow has warned it will retaliate after Norway expelled 15 Russian officials, saying they had abused their diplomatic status to spy in the Nordic nation.
Tehran took advantage of the earthquake that devastated parts of Syria and Turkey in early February, killing tens of thousands, to smuggle weapons and military equipment, according to Reuters.
Saudi Arabia’s interest in establishing diplomatic relations with Israel has cooled in recent months amid ongoing violence in the West Bank and clashes at the flashpoint Temple Mount site, US media reported this week.
Israel has readied its air defenses amid fears of a security flare-up on Friday when Palestinian worshipers will throng the Al-Aqsa Mosque for Ramadan prayers and Iran will commemorate its annual “Quds Day” with anti-Israel activities.
Social media was abuzz with videos showing an infestation of unidentified bugs at the Great Mosque, the holiest mosque in all of Islam. It is the focus of the hajj, the pilgrimage, which draws millions of Muslims a year to Saudi Arabia. The swarm went unreported on Al Arabiya and other Arab media. The bugs appeared after an unseasonal rain that fell four days ago during Umrah, a lesser pilgrimage festival.
An “obsessive” sperm donor believed to have fathered more than 550 children in the Netherlands and around the world was challenged in a Dutch court Thursday to force him to stop donating.
French President Emmanuel Macron has defended challenging the U.S. superpower status and saying that France should not get caught up in escalating tensions between the United States and China.
Hungary’s nationalist government has decided to withdraw its representatives from the Russia-controlled International Investment Bank (IIB) and will quit it after the U.S. imposed sanctions late Wednesday and planned more punitive measures.
Security forces in Ecuador are searching for some 30 gunmen who killed nine men working at the fishing port of Esmeraldas, officials said.
Saying “I’m at home,” U.S. President Joe Biden addressed Ireland’s parliament Thursday, a day after he said that Northern Ireland must “not go back” to the violence that scarred it for years.
Several sources confirmed that a 21-year-old U.S. Air Force National Guard employee has been arrested over the leak of hundreds of pages of U.S. classified military intelligence.
A new study by the Austrian Academy of Sciences (AAS) has brought to light a previously hidden section of the Gospel of Matthew, Christian Today reports. The study and its findings have been published in the New Testament Studies journal.
North Dakota has now passed two laws which prohibit transgender girls and women from playing on female sports teams in K-12 and at college level.
In a big show of thawing relations with both Iran and Syria, Saudi Arabia on Wednesday hosted delegations from the two countries intending to restore severed diplomatic ties with each of them, the Times of Israel (TOI) reports.
In a case brought by the Catholic Archbishop of Bangalore, India’s Supreme Court will on Friday consider harsh anti-conversion laws passed in numerous Indian states and consider the church leader’s request to compel the disclosure of records of religious violations in those states, the Christian Post (CP) reports.
The United States lashed out at Hungary for its “eagerness” to have friendly ties with Moscow and imposed sanctions on three individuals of a Budapest-based Russian-controlled bank.
The Biden administration is considering expanding its social media and chatroom monitoring protocols after classified documents were circulated online for weeks without notice, according to a report Wednesday.
The number of women receiving legal abortions fell by more than 6% in the six months after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, according to a new report.