Tag: All Regions

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg says Turkey’s leader has agreed to have Turkish parliament vote on Sweden’s bid to join the defense alliance. The announcement came via a tweet after Stoltenberg met with both Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson in Vilnius, Lithuania, on the eve of the NATO summit there. “Glad to announce that after the meeting I hosted with @RTErdogan & @SwedishPM, President Erdogan has agreed to forward #Sweden’s accession protocol to the Grand…

NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg announces that President Erdogan agrees to forward Sweden’s bid to Turkey’s parliament. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has agreed to back Sweden’s bid to join NATO after a year of blocking the move, citing Turkish security concerns. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg announced on Monday that Erdogan agreed to forward Sweden’s membership bid to Turkey’s parliament. After talks in Vilnius, Lithuania, with Erdogan and Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, Stoltenberg said Turkey had agreed to move forward….

As you’ll recall, Reddit CEO Steve Huffman whined about what he called the “landed gentry” among moderators of subreddits that were protesting his ridiculous extractive API changes. He insisted that perhaps things should be more democratic. In response, many subreddits took a vote on how subscribers to those subreddits wanted the mods to handle things, and many urged the moderators to continue protesting. But, Huffman apparently couldn’t handle that kind of democracy. So he’s spent the last few weeks threatening…

After a weekend of broiling heat waves in the Southwest and South Florida, more extreme heat is forecast to build throughout the week. Forecasters say residents of both regions should stay out of the sun as much as possible. Across the country, heat waves are getting hotter, lasting longer and becoming more unpredictable. Jeff Goodell, the author of The Heat Will Kill You First, called it a dire consequence of climate change. “We know that as we continue to burn…

“The US Department of State has finally turned into the ‘Ministry of Truth’ predicted by George Orwell and actually dictates to the American media what exactly they should write and say. In June, the Department of State issued instructions to major telecommunications holdings such as AT&T, Comcast Corporation, Graham Media Group, Nash Holdings, Newsweek Publishing, and The New York Times Company to misrepresent events in and around Russia,” the SVR said in a statement, adding that the goal is to…

  Joe Biden blurted out to reporters on Sunday that his decision to send widely-banned cluster bombs to Ukraine was made because “we’ve run out of ammunition.” “Mr President– on cluster munitions, why now?” a reporter asked. “We’ve run out of ammunition,” Biden bluntly responded. Joe Biden wasn’t supposed to say the quiet part out loud: “We’ve run out of ammunition”. But now that the cat’s out of the bag, one must ask whether continued support of Ukraine’s military is…

  According to the company, Spain imported 7,673 gigawatt hours (GWh) of liquefied natural gas from Russia last month, which accounted for 26.8% of the kingdom’s total purchases. From January to June, Spain purchased 41,145 GWh of LNG from Russia, Enagas added. Russia is followed by Algeria and the United States. Algeria exported to Spain 21% of the total amount of gas, and the United States – 18.5%. Earlier, media reported, citing sources, that Madrid urged Spanish importers of Russian…

Conflict-torn Sudan is on the brink of a “full-scale civil war” that could destabilise the entire region, the United Nations warned Sunday, after an air strike on a residential area killed around two dozen civilians. The Ministry of Health reported “22 dead and a large number of wounded among the civilians” from the strike on Khartoum’s sister city Omdurman, in the district of Dar al-Salam, which means “House of Peace” in Arabic. After nearly three months of war between Sudan’s…

Mali has freed at least two jihadists from the Sahel affiliate of the Islamic State group in a prisoner exchange, a security official and two politicians told AFP on Saturday. The Sahel country’s military had in recent days released Oumeya Ould Albakaye and Dadi Ould Cheghoub, both members of the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS), flying them from Bamako to the Gao region in the north, the security official said. One of the politicians, an elected official in Gao, said that at least three jihadists were…

The Kremlin on Saturday slammed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky‘s decision to repatriate several Ukrainian commanders who should have remained in Turkey until the end of the conflict under a deal. The Ukrainian presidency confirmed that it had secured the return of members of the crack Azov regiment, which is despised in Russia, after “negotiations with the Turkish side.” They were greeted at Istanbul airport by Zelensky, who was on a visit to Turkey. “The return of Azov commanders from Turkey to Ukraine is nothing but a direct violation of the terms…

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Sunday said she agreed Washington will listen to Chinese complaints about security-related curbs on U.S. technology exports and might “respond to unintended consequences” as she ended a visit to Beijing aimed at reviving strained relations. Yellen defended “targeted measures” on trade that China’s leaders complain are aimed at hurting its fledgling tech industries. She said the Biden administration wants to “avoid unnecessary repercussions” but gave no indication of possible changes. Relations between the two…

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korean opposition lawmakers sharply criticized the head of the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog for its approval of Japanese plans to release treated wastewater from the damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant during a tense meeting in Seoul on Sunday, with protesters screaming outside the door. Rafael Mariano Grossi, the International Atomic Energy Agency’s director general, arrived in South Korea over the weekend to engage with government officials and critics and help reduce public concerns about…

  PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — Prandy Tavarez and his wife were expecting a baby when they bought a four-bedroom house in a well-kept neighborhood of century-old homes here. They got to work making it theirs, ripping off wallpaper, upgrading the electrical and replacing windows coated in paint that contained lead, a potent neurotoxin that can damage brain development in children. That wasn’t the only lead. The pipe carrying water to their home was made of it, too. Providence’s tap water…

This July 3 marks the 10th anniversary of Egyptian army chief General Abdel Fattah Sisi’s violent seizure of power in Cairo. The first democratically elected leader in 5000 years of Egyptian history, Mohamed Morsi, was swept from office, his supporters were massacred by the hundreds, and he ultimately died in prison. With US and UK support, Sisi quickly reversed any tentative democratic gains made during the country’s brief, difficult transition from the rule of longtime Western-backed autocrat Hosni Mubarak. In…

Dr. Jordan Peterson, the ex-University of Toronto psychology professor who gained fame for his vigorous defense of free speech, has been subjected to what is perceived as a systemic censorship effort by YouTube. A popular figure in media circles, Peterson’s prolific online presence took a hit when the video-sharing platform decided to censor his account, a move the professor lamented on social media. On Wednesday, the professor shared on Twitter a copy of the email he received from YouTube justifying…

From August, China is to restrict exports of gallium and germanium, two critical elements for making semiconductor chips. With China dominating the supply of both elements, exporters will now need special license to get them out of the country. The move has the potential to harm a range of western tech manufacturers that use these elements to make their products. The move is reportedly in response to western restrictions of equipment vital for making semiconductor devices (and was forewarned in an previous article in The Conversation). Above…