admin

Shooting left Slovakia’s leader in ‘life-threatening’ conditionRobert Fico, Slovakia’s prime minister, was shot five times and critically wounded yesterday. Officials said the attack appeared to be an assassination attempt and was politically motivated. Police said a suspect had been detained.The interior minister said Fico was still in surgery hours after the shooting and remained in critical condition. Here’s the latest.Videos from the scene showed the gunman shooting Fico in Banikov […]

The Biden administration, under acute pressure from House lawmakers, moved on Wednesday to ban funding for a prominent virus-hunting nonprofit group whose work with Chinese scientists had put it at the heart of theories that Covid leaked from a lab.The decision, announced in a letter from the Department of Health and Human Services, came on the heels of a scorching congressional hearing this month at which lawmakers barraged the group’s […]

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken warned on Wednesday that recent gains in getting desperately needed humanitarian aid to people in the Gaza Strip risked being undone by the fighting in southern Gaza.The border crossing in the southern city of Rafah has been closed since Israel began what it describes as a limited military operation against Hamas fighters in the town, on the border with Egypt. The United Nations said […]

A.T. Ariyaratne, a Sri Lankan who fought to alleviate the terrible living conditions of his country’s rural poor, creating a Buddhism-inspired social services organization that operates in thousands of villages, died on April 16 in Colombo, Sri Lanka’s capital. He was 92.His death, at a hospital, was confirmed by his son Dr. Vinya Ariyaratne, in an interview.Sometimes styled in the country’s media as a Sri Lankan Mahatma Gandhi, Mr. Ariyaratne […]

Four right-wing parties in the Netherlands said on Wednesday that they had reached a preliminary agreement to form a government that would exclude Geert Wilders, a populist politician, from becoming prime minister.The agreement came after nearly six months of negotiations, and the leaders of the four parties now have to take it to their party’s members in the House of Representatives, who could still suggest amendments. But the chances of […]

A wildfire near Canada’s largest oil producing region prompted the evacuation of about 6,600 people from Fort McMurray, Alberta. Several thousand other residents of the city were told to prepared to leave at any moment.The evacuation on Tuesday has evoked fearful memories of a major fire in 2016 that destroyed roughly 2,400 homes and businesses, forced 90,000 people to flee and became the most expensive natural disaster in Canadian history.“I […]

If France is a country of illusions — a beautiful and seductive land offering many of life’s greatest pleasures that sits atop and conceals a crime-ridden, drug-plagued world of violence — then the past week offered a rude awakening to this dual reality.The Olympic flame arrived on French soil last week in the ancient port city of Marseille as a joyous crowd thronged the beautiful harbor. The chatter was of […]

A former interior minister and enforcer for a violent and autocratic Gambian president was convicted of crimes against humanity on Wednesday for the torture and executions of civilians and sentenced to 20 years in prison by Switzerland’s federal court.The verdict, which one plaintiff called a “milestone” for victims, came after a landmark trial that was followed closely by victims of the government’s repression.The former minister, Ousman Sonko, 55, was found […]

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken warned on Wednesday that recent gains in getting desperately needed humanitarian aid to people in the Gaza Strip risked being undone by the fighting in southern Gaza.For over a week, since Israel began what it describes as a limited military operation against Hamas in the southern city of Rafah, one border crossing vital to the transit of the aid has been closed, and another […]