Politics

On Tuesday, a series of coordinated pager explosions occurred in southern Beirut and the Bekaa Valley, in Lebanon, resulting in twelve deaths and 2,800 injuries. According to CNN, the blasts targeted Hezbollah, a Lebanese Shia Islamist political party and paramilitary group. The cause of the explosions was still under investigation. Early evidence suggested the pager explosions were triggered by explosives planted in the pagers, or faulty batteries, Reuters reported. The following day, walkie-talkies, laptops, and radios also exploded, killing

The following is the first edition of a monthly series chronicling the 2024 United States presidential election. It features original material compiled throughout the previous month after an overview of polling and the biggest stories of the month. This month's spotlight on the campaign trail: an exclusive, behind-the-scenes look at the US Reform Party's presidential nomination; fear and loathing at the 2024 Libertarian National Convention; and an interview with the Libertarian Party's new vice presidential nominee. Overview Polling At the

Monday, a Fulton County, Georgia grand jury seated in Atlanta indicted nineteen people, including former United States President Donald Trump, on 41 counts overall, Trump himself facing thirteen. Referencing the Republican's election loss to President Joe Biden in 2020 in Georgia and nationally, it alleged they "refused to accept that Trump lost, and they knowingly and willfully joined a conspiracy to unlawfully change the outcome of the election in favor of Trump." The grand jury's indictment continued: "That conspiracy contained a common pla

Silvio Berlusconi, a former prime minister of Italy, died yesterday in the San Raffaele Hospital in Milan at the age of 86. Berlusconi's health had been in decline, with his doctor reporting in April that he had had leukaemia "for some time" after he was placed into intensive care with a lung infection. Berlusconi was the longest-serving post-World War II prime minister of Italy across three non-consecutive ministries between 1994 and 2011. Forza Italia, the party he founded, have formed part of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's Brothers of It

After under three hours of deliberation, a federal jury in Manhattan, New York City on Tuesday found former US President Donald Trump liable for sexual abuse and defamation of plaintiff E. Jean Carroll. The six-man, three-woman jury awarded Carroll US$5 million — roughly, US$2 million sexual abuse and US$3 million for defamation. The jury did not find Trump liable for rape. Trump said on his Truth Social app: "THIS VERDICT IS A DISGRACE." He said he intended to appeal on Fox News Digital. Visiting his properties in Scotland and Ireland, Tru

Yesterday, Russia said Ukraine launched a nighttime drone attack to assassinate Russian President Vladimir Putin at Moscow's Kremlin. Authorities reported no casualties. "Last night, the Kiev regime attempted a drone strike against the residence of the President of the Russian Federation at the Kremlin. Two unmanned aerial vehicles targeted the Kremlin. Timely action by the military and special services involving radar systems enabled them to disable the devices. They crashed in the Kremlin grounds, scattering fragments without causing any cas

On Saturday (Friday UTC), Australian Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles announced on Twitter a team led by the Australia-based Silentworld Foundation had located the South China Sea wreck of the Montevideo Maru. The ship was a Japanese merchant marine vessel carrying prisoners of war (POWs) when the United States Navy torpedoed it in 1942, during World War II, killing 1,080. The ship's wreckage was found northwest of Luzon, Philippines, over down, deeper than the wreck of the RMS Titanic. Accompanied by deep-sea specialists from Dutch comp

Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen released a statement on April 11, in which she said China created instability in the region with its three-day military drills in the Taiwan Strait. The Associated Press reported that the drills were in response to Tsai's recent visit to the United States, during which she met with speaker of the US House of Representatives Kevin McCarthy. McCarthy was the highest ranking US politician to have met with a Taiwanese president on US soil. In her statement, Tsai said "As the president, I represent our country in

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China on Friday sanctioned two US organizations, four of their employees, two Taiwanese organizations, their directors, and Taiwan's representative to the US. The sanctions came after Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen and US lawmakers, among them US House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy, met at the Reagan Library in California on Wednesday. The Ministry forbade Chinese entities from contact with the US organizations, saying: "The Hudson Institute and the Reagan Library have provided a platform and f

On Wednesday, Kevin McCarthy, speaker of the US House of Representatives, met with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California. McCarthy, a Republican, became the highest American official to meet a Taiwanese head of state on American soil since 1979, when the former began official relations with China. During a press conference, McCarthy said: "The friendship between the people of Taiwan and America is a matter of profound importance to the free world and it is critical to maintain e

The United Kingdom Home Office today is to begin issuing questionnaires in place of official interviews to determine refugee status for some 12,000 asylee hopefuls from Afghanistan, Eritrea, Libya, Syria and Yemen who applied before last summer. The forms are part of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's effort to clear the nation's 92,000 asylum claim-'legacy backlog' by year end. While standard security, criminal, and health checks will continue, officials will scrap the face-to-face interview step to "streamline" processing for five nationalities w

On Monday, Pakistan's government reversed its block on all Wikimedia Foundation projects, including the online encyclopedia Wikipedia. Regulator Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) had imposed the indefinite ban Friday, alleging the websites hosted "sacrilegious content" offensive to Islamic beliefs. Human rights advocates rebuked the government over the block, including Amnesty International, which declared it an "unjustifiable restriction on the right to freedom of expression". Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif assembled a commission of