Author: News Desk

Slovakia: Slovakia’s Prime Minister Robert Fico has been critically injured after being shot multiple times in a politically motivated assassination attempt, according to the interior minister. The prime minister’s condition is life-threatening, Interior Minister Matus Sutaj Estok stated at a briefing outside the hospital in Banska Bystrica, the city’s center, earlier on Wednesday. He said that the shooting was “politically motivated and the perpetrator’s decision was born closely after the presidential election,” alluding to the election that an ally of Fico won in April. The shooting shocked the country of central Europe and sparked international outrage in the central town…

Russia: Russian President Vladimir Putin will visit China for the second time in less than a year, at the invitation of Chinese leader Xi Jinping. This is the latest indication of the two countries’ growing alignment at a time when global fault lines are becoming more pronounced as Russia advances in Ukraine and conflict devastates Gaza. Less than a week after taking office again and prolonging his despotic rule until 2030 as the outcome of an election with no real opposition, Putin is scheduled to arrive in China. According to Chinese official media, his visit, which is scheduled on May…

China: A well-known protest song in Hong Kong has been blocked on YouTube, following a court decision granting the government’s request to ban the anthem. YouTube said in a statement on Wednesday that, as a result of a court ruling, 32 online sites that play “Glory to Hong Kong” have been blocked and are no longer accessible in the semi-autonomous Chinese city. When users tried to view the videos—which feature the song’s instrumental and sign language versions—from Hong Kong, they were met with notices that said things like, “This video isn’t available anymore” or “This content is not available on…

United States: US President Joe Biden has declared a 100 percent tariff on electric vehicles manufactured in China. This move is aimed at safeguarding US manufacturers from the competition of inexpensive imports. The White House said that it was putting stricter restrictions on $18 billion worth of Chinese goods, a move that is sure to exacerbate trade tensions between the two largest economies in the world. According to sources, the action was taken after a four-year evaluation and was intended as a preventive measure to prohibit low-cost, heavily subsidized Chinese items from entering the US market and stunting the expansion…

Switzerland: An NGO monitor discovered that the global population of internally displaced people (IDPs) reached a record 75.9 million in 2023. In a report published by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) stated that 68.3 million people had been displaced by conflict and violence, and 7.7 million had been displaced by natural disasters. The numbers reached a new high as a result of the wars in Gaza and Sudan. “Over the past two years, we’ve seen alarming new levels of people having to flee their homes due to conflict and violence, even in regions where the trend had been improving,”…

Ukraine: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has arrived in Kyiv in an unexpected diplomatic visit to stress US support for Ukraine in its fight against Russian forces that have established a new front line in the northeastern Kharkiv region. This month’s $61 billion military aid package for the nation was approved by Congress after much delay, and there are worries that the US leadership has been busy with Israel’s Gaza conflict. This is the first visit by a senior US official since then. According to a US official who briefed reporters travelling with Blinken on condition of anonymity, Blinken,…

United States: US President Joe Biden has ordered a Chinese-owned bitcoin miner and its partners to sell land they hold close to a US nuclear missile station citing fears about espionage. MineOne Partners, which is said to be mostly owned by Chinese nationals by the White House, has been given 120 days to sell the land on which it operates a cryptocurrency mining business. The area is situated 1.6 km (less than a mile) from an air force base in Wyoming that houses intercontinental ballistic missiles. “The proximity of the foreign-owned Real Estate to a strategic missile base… and the…

Indonesia: Search and rescue officials reported that heavy rains on the Indonesian island of Sumatra resulted in flash flooding and a cold lava flow from an active volcano, killing at least 37 people and injuring over a dozen more. When rainy weather descends a volcano’s slopes, a mixture of volcanic debris, including ash, sand, and stones, is released as cold lava, or lahar. Near the base of Mount Marapi, an active volcano in western Sumatra, thick muck and ash partially covered roads and mountainside settlements, according to images released by Indonesia’s disaster response agency. More flooding was recorded in four…

United States: The federal court has declined to prolong an injunction against Elon Musk’s platform X over 65 tweets that included a video of a stabbing attack at a Sydney church before the case’s last hearing. Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel was stabbed last month while conducting a live-streamed service at the Assyrian Christ the Good Shepherd church in the Sydney suburb of Wakeley. X was told to conceal the posts of the incident. Only after X blocked the tweets from Australian users did the eSafety commissioner get an injunction from a federal court, threatening legal action against the notification. Unless…

Russia: Russian President Vladimir Putin intends to replace Sergei Shoigu as defence minister with the position of secretary of the Security Council as part of a cabinet reorganization. The Kremlin announced on Sunday that Andrei Belousov, a former deputy prime minister with expertise in finance, will take over as the new defence minister. The transition occurs as Putin takes office for a fifth time. Following Putin’s inauguration at the Kremlin on Tuesday, the whole government resigned by Russian law. The Federation Council, Russia’s upper body of parliament, must accept Belousov’s candidacy. Two years before Russia’s invasion and annexation of the…