Month: February 2018

Russian news reports say a gunman has opened fire on people leaving a church service in the North Caucasus region of Dagestan, killing and least five people and wounding five others. The Tass news agency said the shooting occurred Sunday outside a church in the town of Kizlyar. The assailant was killed by police. “The shooter was shot dead,” Kizlyar’s Mayor Alexander Shuvalov told Tass, adding that two police officers were among those wounded. The assailant was identified as a 22-year-old man local to the region, the TASS news agency said.  His name was not released. The Islamic State claimed …

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Six months ago after a string of jihadist-inspired attacks in London and Manchester, British Prime Minister Theresa May said the time had come to have “embarrassing conversations” about Islam’s place in Britain. Her comment was sparked by claims that the country’s Muslims weren’t doing enough to counter extremism and jihadist propaganda. So far, mired in Brexit controversy, the British government hasn’t started a debate in earnest. But on the other side of the English Channel, French President Emmanuel Macron is proposing a root-and-branch reform of Islam in France — a project being closed watched by the British and by other …

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Britain was hit by its biggest earthquake in a decade Saturday, the British Geological Survey (BGS) said, with tremors felt across parts of Wales and southwest England but no notable damage reported. The BGS said the quake was of magnitude 4.4, with an epicenter 20 km (12.5 miles) north of the Welsh city of Swansea, adding that it was the biggest quake in the Britain since 2008. Earthquakes are not common in Britain and are rarely powerful. The 2008 quake in Market Rasen, northeast England, was magnitude 5.2, or 16 times more powerful than Saturday’s quake. However, Saturday’s earthquake in …

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Spain has assumed a pivotal role in pressuring Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro to change his regime’s “barbaric” course, according to Spanish diplomats who spoke to VOA on condition of anonymity. Venezuela’s crisis reached major dimensions last week as hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans made an exodus to neighboring countries, escaping the hyperinflation, food shortages and rampant violence prevailing over what used to be South America’s wealthiest oil producer. Spain has openly pushed for sanctions by the European Union that target Maduro and his top officials in a move that led to the expulsion of the Spanish ambassador and insults against …

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Moscow has dismissed U.S. charges against several Russian citizens and companies for meddling in the 2016 presidential election as “blather.” Speaking at the Munich Security Conference, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov questioned the evidence. The charges have formed a tense backdrop to the conference, which has focused on growing threats to global security, as Henry Ridgwell reports from Munich. …

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Dozens of the world’s political and military leaders, along with thousands of politicians, journalists and security experts descend on southern Germany every year for the Munich Security Conference. The stated aim is to bring allies and adversaries together, to put dialogue before confrontation. The venue, the historical Bayerischer Hof hotel, seems barely big enough to squeeze everyone in. Organizers say the intimacy forces people to talk. This year, the 54th conference, there is a palpable sense the world is becoming a more dangerous place. “This year we meet at a critical time for our nations, and indeed for all humanity,” …

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A 100-year-old drawing by one of Austria’s most celebrated artists has come out of hiding. Gustav Klimt’s drawing, Two Reclining Figures, has resurfaced after being lost from the Lentos Museum in Linz for decades, apparently hidden in the home of a former assistant at the museum who retired in 1977. The drawing, which shows two female figures in blissful repose among fluffy bedcovers, was found after the assistant, whose name has not been released, left directions in her will that it be returned to the museum after her death. When she died in December 2017, her personal documents included instructions on …

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A California man has pleaded guilty to inadvertently selling bank accounts to Russians who were indicted Friday by a federal grand jury for interfering in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Richard Pinedo pleaded guilty to using stolen identities to set up bank accounts that were then used by the Russians, according to a February 12 court filing.   The special counsel investigating Russian meddling on Friday announced charges against 13 Russian citizens and three Russian entities for interfering in the election.   The indictment alleges that the Internet Research Agency, a St. Petersburg-based social media company with Kremlin ties, 12 of its …

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