The Crimean Parliament on Tuesday said it would declare itself independent if its residents approve a referendum on March 16, which would split off the peninsula from Ukraine, and be under Russian auspices. The legal maneuver has been viewed as illegitimate by the U.S. and the European powers, but may de-escalate simmering tensions in the region in recent weeks.
The Obama administration is preparing $1 billion aid package in loan guarantees to the interim Ukrainian government following heightened tensions with Russia, after President Vladimir Putin ordered troops to invade the Crimean peninsula over the weekend.
One of the main reason protesters in Ukraine braved the cold winter for the past few months, which has lead to deadly clashes with riot police was that they sought to challenge President Yanukovch's increasingly authoritarian rule of law and his method of centralizing corruption.
With chants of "help Ukraine, help Ukraine" bellowing on this rainy Wednesday afternoon, Ukrainians in New York City gathered en masse at the Federal Reserve Bank on Wednesday.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that two jailed members of the punk band Pussy Riot would be freed under an amnesty bill, The Associated Press reported. The bill will also enable 30 people arrested in a Greenpeace protest against arctic oil drilling to avoid trial. The moves come just a couple of months before Russia hosts the Winter Olympics in February.
U.S. District Judge Richard Leon declared Monday that the "government's once-secret collection of domestic phone records is unconstitutional, setting up likely appeals and further challenges to the data mining, revealed by classified leaker Edward Snowden. Leon said the NSA's collection of metadata (or "phone records of the time and numbers called without any disclosure of content") violated privacy records
Spanish journalist Javier Espinosa and photographer Ricardo Garcia-Vilanova were reportedly abducted by a rebel group linked to al Qaeda known as the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) on September 16 at a checkpoint in Raqqa province
Chuck Hagel, the U.S. Secretary of Defense, has ordered for American forces "to begin transporting forces from Burundi to the Central African Republic," following a request from France, his spokesman said in a statement. France deployed 1,600 troops to the war ravaged nation last week, and began to remove weapons on Monday.
Thousands of pro-Europe demonstrators are marching through Kiev in a mass protest at President Viktor Yanukovych's refusal to sign an EU trade deal, BBC News reported. The protesters are reporting demanding new elections, and the impeachment of Yanukovych. Protesters hope that the government will be more inclusive with the EU.
A Thai court on Thursday sentenced Lee Aldhouse, a British kick-boxer, to 25 years in jail for the murder of ex-Marine Dashawn Longfellow on a resort island in 2010
Afghan President Hamid Karzai said that he prefers that his successor will sign the security pact with the United States, which could keep American troops in the country for a decade or longer
A Moscow City Court judged dismissed the jury in the murder trial of five men who have been suspected of being involved with the murder of slain Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya. Three of the accused failed to turn up for a hearing Thursday.
Israeli soldier Private Eden Atias was killed on Wednesday after being stabbed in the neck in a bus in Afula, a northern city. While rushed to a nearby hospital, he later died of his wounds, Ynet News reported. Hussein Jawadra, the 16-year-old assailant from Jenin who had been residing in Israel illegal, turned himself over to security forces.
The trial involving ousted President Mohammed Morsi began Monday in "a charged atmosphere," Russia Today reported."Down with military rule," his fellow Muslim Brotherhood members chanted, according to reports.Morsi, who had not been in public since June 3, has been charged for the incitement of killing protesters " "who massed outside the presidential palace in December 2012 and demanded that he call off a referendum on a new Islamist-drafted constitution."
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki arrived at the White House to appeal to President Barack Obama for more U.S. assistance combating increased terrorism perpetrated by an emboldened insurgency within his country. Al-Maliki argued that U.S. assistance with additional weapons and help with intelligence are paramount to quell unrest in the country
A bomb in a mosque killed Governor Arsallah Jamal of eastern Logar province in Afghanistan as he was delivering a speech at the main mosque in the provincial capital of Puli Alam to mark the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha.
Israel's security forces last week discovered an underground tunnel linking Gaza and Israel, which was expected to facilitate a terror attack or kidnapping attempt inside the country, the army said on Sunday
British police arrested and questioned four men in their 20s on suspicion of terrorism in pre-planned, intelligence led raids. They are being held on suspicion of the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism.
Demonstrators raided a shopping center and stormed a vegetable warehouse in Moscow on Sunday following the stabbing death of an ethnic Russian man. Yegor Shcherbakov, the 25-year-old victim was reportedly killed by a native from the North Caucasus, a region in southern Russia, whose inhabitants are predominantly Muslim.
The Taliban has issued a new threat against 16-year-old Malala Yousafzai, the girl who had been shot in the head by one of its fighters a years ago after refusing to halt her effort to expose the plight of schoolgirls in Pakistan
Sixteen people were killed when a small passenger plane, operated by Nigeria's Associated Airlines, crashed a little after takeoff outside Lagos airport's domestic terminal on Thursday
