The Russiagate-inspired frenzy seemingly hit a new low when a routine sanitary inspection in New York turned into an investigation into Putin ties and “secret meetings in the basement” at a well-known Russian food chain.
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Anders Aslund’s deep knowledge of Eastern European politics was no match for April Fool’s, when the supposedly all-knowing Russia commentator fruitlessly cheered fake news about Belarus expelling Russian diplomats.
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Germany needs to rebuild trust with Russia to tackle regional crises and promote multilateralism, a newly-appointed Foreign Minister said in a surprise addition to his statement praising the West’s unity over the Skripal case.
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Onstage, South Korean K-Pop Stars. In the Balcony, Kim Jong-un, Clapping. Photo North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, on balcony, top right center, drew thunderous applause when he appeared for a performance by South Korean musicians in Pyongyang on Sunday. Credit Pool photo/EPA, via Shutterstock SEOUL, South Korea — He clapped and he smiled, even posing for a group photo with a K-pop band.
The appearance by North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, on Sunday at a concert by South Korean musicians in Pyongyang was all the more unusual because his authoritarian government has been struggling to stave off what it sees as an infiltration of the South’s pop culture among his isolated people.
But Mr. Kim shook the hands of members of South Korea’s most popular girl band, Red Velvet, which he and his wife, Ri Sol-ju, watched from a balcony.
After watching Red Velvet perform, Mr. Kim reportedly pronounced the event a “gift for Pyongyang citizens.”
The two-hour show at the East Pyongyang Grand Theater w..
Supported by Business Day | The Week Ahead White House to List Chinese Products Facing Tariffs and the March Jobs Report Photo A television production line at a factory in Lianyungang, China. The Trump administration is expected this week to announce the list of Chinese products that will be hit with tariffs. Credit Agence France-Presse — Getty Images TRADE
Trump to release list of next tariff targets.The Trump administration is expected this week to announce the list of Chinese products that will be hit with tariffs over what the administration has called the country’s theft of intellectual property. Mr. Trump has said the levies will affect at least $50 billion in imported goods and will most likely focus on cutting-edge tech products of the kind that United States fears losing out on to China. Americans are more likely to feel the impact of these tariffs than those applied to steel and aluminum in March, because they will probably hit consumer products found on store shelves, r..
A New Push Is on for Afghan Schools, but the Numbers Are Grim Photo Students taking a test in Kunduz Province. Almost half of Afghan schools are still in the open air or borrow space in homes. Credit Jim Huylebroek for The New York Times KABUL, Afghanistan — Before the start of another Afghan school year, about 200 tribal elders in the southeastern district of Laja Mangal gathered in a schoolyard for an important declaration: Any family that did not send its children to school would be fined $70, about half a civil servant’s monthly salary.
The district of about 50,000 people had built seven schools over the past 15 years, yet it had struggled to attract students from the mountainous area where the Taliban also have influence. The elders, feeling old tribal customs were holding back their children, thought the drastic measure was necessary.
“They see those people who go to school and become important people in the government and international organizations, so they have tasted the valu..
Germany’s national mail service Deutsche Post reportedly sold personal data, including information on voters’ gender, wealth and consumer habits, to Chancellor Angela Merkel’s CDU party ahead of the 2017 elections.
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Efraín Ríos Montt, Guatemalan Dictator Convicted of Genocide, Dies at 91 Photo Gen. Efraín Ríos Montt in 2003, the year he was nominated for president of Guatemala by the Republican Front party.
Credit Mario Linares/Reuters Gen. Efraín Ríos Montt, who as dictator of Guatemala in the 1980s ordered fierce tactics to suppress a guerrilla insurgency and was later convicted of genocide and crimes against humanity, died on Sunday in Guatemala City. He was 91.
The cause was a heart attack, according to his lawyers, Jaime Hernández and Luis Rosales. He had suffered lung and heart problems in recent years, along with dementia.
In the panoply of commanders who turned much of Central America into a killing field in the 1980s, General Ríos Montt was one of the most murderous. He was convicted in 2013 of trying to exterminate the Ixil ethnic group, a Mayan Indian community whose villages were wiped out by General Ríos’s forces.
A Guatemalan judge found that the general knew about the systematic mas..
Thousands took to the streets of the Moscow region town of Volokolamsk on Sunday as locals continued protesting against a leaking waste depot nearby, blaming authorities for not doing enough to solve the crisis.
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“Ready Player One” arrived to $181 million in global sales, giving Steven Spielberg his first unqualified blockbuster since “Minority Report” in 2005.