Month: May 2019

Afghan politicians are set to attend a two-day meeting with the Taliban in Moscow this week, AFP reported officials as saying on Monday. The meeting is scheduled to run on May 27-28 to mark the 100th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Russia and Afghanistan. Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen said the insurgents were planning to send…

In a report that views Russia through the same cracked lens as Washington’s old ideological foe, the Soviet Union, the RAND Corporation reveals that its worst enemy for gaining global dominance is not Russia but the US. Featured in the 1964 dark comedy ‘Dr. Strangelove’, where it starred as the “BLAND Corporation” – the think…

The wife of Russian NHL star Alexander Ovechkin has told fans “to accept defeat with honor” in an apparent riposte to criticism of the team following their world championship semifinal exit at the hands of Finland. A star-studded Russian outfit containing the likes of Washington Capitals star Ovechkin and fellow NHL players Ilya Kovalchuk and…

Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders took a swipe at neoconservative Bill Kristol for his “foolish advocacy of the Iraq war,” and questioned whether he had apologized to the country for it yet. Sanders was responding to a tweet Kristol sent that said, “#Never Sanders,” and linked to a New York Times article about the longtime…

The EU Parliament’s three-day elections have concluded across Europe. The polls attracted a record number of voters, not seen in over two decades, while exit polls signal the expected rise of right-wing parties is accurate. The turnout for the union-wide elections has become the largest in two decades, with an estimated 51 percent of voters…

Iran has proposed signing a non-aggression pact to its neighbors, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said. At the same time, the country is ready to defend itself from any attack, be it “an economic war or a military one.” “Tehran has offered to sign a non-aggression pact with its neighbors in the Gulf,” Zarif said…

US civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr. allegedly “looked on and laughed” as a Baptist minister friend raped a woman, according to FBI records accessed by an American historian. Writing in a piece due to be published shortly in Britain’s Standpoint magazine, King biographer and historian David Garrow said he came across the accusation…

US President Donald Trump brushed off the North Korea hawks on his team, saying he was not at all “disturbed” by the news of renewed muscle flexing by Pyongyang. The launch of “some small weapons” by North Korea worries “some of my people, and others, but not me,” Trump tweeted on Saturday during his trip to Japan. Pyongyang test-fired short-range ballistic…

Greece’s left-wing Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, whose Syriza party has suffered a major blow at the European polls, has said he would ask the country’s president to call early elections. With a third of the ballots counted, Tsipras’ Syriza is trailing some 10 percent behind its main rival, conservative New Democracy Party. According to the…

Thailand’s king opened parliament on Friday five years after a 2014 coup as the junta moves within striking distance of cementing its grip on power, AFP said. Results of the March 24 poll were released almost two months after the vote and showed no clear winner. The junta-linked Palang Pracharat won 115 seats in the…