Month: May 2019

Several Russian media outlets have caused confusion by reporting that the Russian Orthodox Church is opening a new temple in Westeros – not the fantasy continent from ‘Game of Thrones’ but a city in Sweden pronounced the same way. Västerås is a city of some 120,000 people in central Sweden, some 100 kilometers west of…

Russian underdog Vitalia Diatchenko may not have won her French Open 1st round match against US great Serena Williams, but she won widespread attention in the media with a strong showing of her bulging biceps during the match. READ MORE: Serena Williams gets 1st win in ‘zebra’ outfit at French Open despite dropping opening set…

A Swedish court has rejected a request to postpone a hearing on the detention of the WikiLeaks founder. Julian Assange’s lawyers requested the court session be postponed due to their client’s ill health. Swedish prosecutors reopened a rape case against Assange earlier this month after Assange was hauled from London’s Ecuadorian embassy and jailed for…

The Iraqi Kurdish parliament on Tuesday elected Nechirvan Barzani, the nephew and son-in-law of veteran leader Masoud Barzani, as president of the autonomous region. The deputy leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party won 68 votes from the 81 members present in the 111-seat chamber. The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan of late Iraqi president Jalal Talabani,…

A TV mogul wanted in the US on money laundering and bribery charges was a mediator between Washington and Caracas officials, offering them sanctions relief in exchange for turning on the government, a new report says. One of the key figures behind the abortive April 30 uprising intended to oust President Nicolas Maduro in favor…

Mark Zuckerberg talks a big game when it comes to giving users what they want and serving the ‘community’ — but when push comes to shove, the Facebook CEO always follows the dollar signs in his eyes over user satisfaction. When Facebook bought WhatsApp for a cool $19 billion in 2014, Zuckerberg was acquiring a…

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has spoken out against anti-Semitism in Germany, and said that police have to guard every synagogue, Jewish school and daycare center in her country. “We have always had a certain number of anti-Semites among us,” Merkel told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour in an interview aired on Tuesday. “Unfortunately, there is to this…

French rights group ACAT sought on Tuesday to block the loading of what it said were munitions onto a Saudi Arabian ship docked in southern France, Reuters reports. As pressure mounts on Paris to stop military sales to the kingdom, ACAT said it had filed a legal challenge to prevent the vessel from taking delivery…

Beijing is considering a ban on exports of rare earth metals to the US, editor-in-chief of Chinese state-linked outlet Global Times has tweeted, warning it may not be the last retaliatory move by China as the trade war escalates. Reports that China may resort to the embargo have been circulating for weeks. If implemented, the…

Palestine will not accept the “deal of the century” with Israel which is in the works in Washington and rejects all of the recent ‘peacemaking’ proposals, the Palestinian ambassador to Russia has said. Abdelhafiz Nofal, speaking at a press conference in Moscow, has referred to the upcoming peace “deal of the century” advertised by US…