Foreign Affairs

June 28, 2020
Italy honors, remembers virus dead with Donizetti’s Requiem

Italy bid farewell to its coronavirus dead on Sunday with a haunting Requiem concert performed at the entrance to the cemetery of Bergamo, the hardest-hit province in the onetime epicenter...

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June 28, 2020
Rolling Stones threaten to sue Trump over using their songs

The Rolling Stones are threatening President Donald Trump with legal action for using their songs at his rallies despite cease-and-desist directives. The Stones said in a statement Sunday that their...

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June 28, 2020
Taiwan holds LGBT pride parade despite coronavirus

The Taiwanese capital held its annual LGBT pride parade on Sunday, making it one of the few places in the world to proceed with such an event in the face...

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June 28, 2020
Rolling Stones threaten to sue Trump over using their songs

The Rolling Stones are threatening President Donald Trump with legal action for using their songs at his rallies despite cease-and-desist directives. The Stones said in a statement Sunday that their...

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June 28, 2020
Israel may move to annex a big chunk of the West Bank soon, derailing hopes for a Palestinian state

In this sun-baked biblical oasis, Palestinians are bracing for what they fear will be Israel's boldest territorial claim ever outside of war. "We will stay here whatever they do –...

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June 28, 2020
Spied on, fired, publicly shamed: China’s crackdown on professors reminds many of Mao era

BEIJING – The professor was under surveillance. Cameras taped her every lecture. She couldn't publish or give talks outside the university. She knew she had to be careful when she...

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June 28, 2020
Germany’s virus infection rate edges up as number of death slows

Germany's coronavirus infection rate rose after five consecutive days of declines, while the country reported the smallest increase in the number of new deaths from the pandemic since Monday. The...

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June 28, 2020
French PM wins municipal vote, far right takes major town

France's far-right National Rally party won the vote in the southern town of Perpignan in municipal elections on Sunday, while Prime Minister Edouard Philippe clinched the northern city of Le...

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June 28, 2020
Polish president forced into runoff vote in re-election bid

Polish President Andrzej Duda won the first-round vote in his bid for re-election, but he failed to clinch an outright victory and will face Warsaw's mayor in a July 12...

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June 28, 2020
India reports nearly 20,000 cases in a day as it ups COVID-19 testing

India reported its largest jump of 19,906 COVID-19 infections Sunday as several states upped testing in efforts to contain the virus. The number of infections countrywide is 528,859, with 16,095...

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June 28, 2020
China law to establish ‘red lines’ for Hong Kong, adviser says

The national security law that China could impose on Hong Kong as early as this week won't need to be used if the financial hub's residents avoid crossing certain "red...

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June 28, 2020
As Beijing tightens its grip, Hong Kongers seek refuge in Taiwan

The slogans were the same, but they felt different in this foreign land, drifting through the air in a mix of Cantonese and Mandarin: "Five demands, not one less!" and...

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June 28, 2020
How an Indian slum became an unlikely COVID-19 success story

When the first COVID-19 case was detected in Dharavi, a crammed labyrinth of one-room shacks in the heart of India's financial capital, epidemiologists feared the disease would spiral out of...

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June 28, 2020
Poland holds presidential election delayed by pandemic

Poles began voting in a presidential election Sunday that had been scheduled for May but was delayed by the coronavirus pandemic, a ballot taking place amid deep cultural and political...

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June 28, 2020
World leaders, stars unite at event aimed at fighting virus

A summit that included a star-studded virtual concert hosted by Dwayne Johnson has raised nearly $7 billion in cash and loan guarantees to assist the poor around the globe whose...

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June 28, 2020
France holds municipal elections postponed by virus crisis

France is holding the second round of municipal elections in 5,000 towns and cities Sunday that got postponed due to the country's coronavirus outbreak. The voting to fill local offices...

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June 28, 2020
China virus cases stabilize as Italy sees drop in deaths

China has extended COVID-19 tests to newly reopened salons amid a drop in cases, while South Korea continues to face new infections after it eased social distancing rules to lift...

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June 28, 2020
Man fires shots at business center in northern California

Authorities shot a man who drove into a distribution Center Saturday south of Red Bluff and started shooting at people, local media reported. The shooting by a man with “AR-type...

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June 27, 2020
Ireland’s Micheál Martin to lead historic govt coalition

Centrist politician Micheál Martin became Ireland's new prime minister Saturday, fusing two longtime rival parties into a coalition four months after an election that upended the status quo. The deal...

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June 27, 2020
Opposition wins historic rerun of Malawi’s presidential vote

The opposition has won Malawi's historic rerun of the presidential election, the first time a court-overturned vote in Africa has led to the defeat of an incumbent leader. Lazarus Chakwera's...

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June 27, 2020
UK police charge suspect with murder of 3 in Reading park

U.K. counter-terrorism police have charged a 25-year-old man with three counts of murder and three counts of attempted murder for a stabbing attack in an English park that killed three...

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June 27, 2020
EU narrows down border list, US unlikely to make the cut

European Union envoys are close to finalizing a list of countries whose citizens will be allowed to enter Europe again, possibly from late next week, EU diplomats confirmed Saturday. Americans...

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June 27, 2020
For Black Brazilians, COVID-19 is deepening painful inequalities

One country largely untouched by anti-racism protests so far has been Brazil, a striking fact for a society so scarred by the history of slavery and economically divided along race...

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June 27, 2020
Police ban July 1 protest marking Hong Kong’s handover to China

The organizers of a popular July 1 march marking Hong Kong's handover from colonial power Britain to China said Saturday that police had banned the event from going ahead. This...

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June 27, 2020
New prime minister has 2 years to beat Ireland’s greatest crisis

Ireland's new prime minister has just over two years to shape his legacy. After his election on Saturday, Micheal Martin, 59, will lead the nation's first grand coalition until the...

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June 27, 2020
EU donor conference raises $6.89 billion in pandemic aid

A coronavirus donor conference organized by the European Union on Saturday received pledges of aid totaling 6.15 billion euros ($6.89 billion). The funds, which will go toward developing treatments and...

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June 27, 2020
In Belgian town, monuments expose a troubled colonial legacy

For a long time, few people in the small Belgian town of Halle paid much attention to the monuments. They were just fixtures in a local park, tributes to great...

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June 27, 2020
New Israeli espionage TV series tackles shadow war with Iran

Israel's latest hit TV series takes the viewers straight into the heart of the country's archenemy Iran. “Tehran” tells the story of Tamar Rabinyan, a young Mossad operative tasked with...

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June 27, 2020
Brazen ambush of Mexico City chief blamed on Jalisco cartel

Dozens of gunmen believed tied to the hyper-violent Jalisco New Generation Cartel deployed for a complex, multi-point dawn ambush meant to kill Mexico City's police chief, unleashing one of the...

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June 26, 2020
U.S. to spend $252 million in aid to Central America to curb illegal immigration

The U.S. government has earmarked $252 million to boost job opportunities and increase public safety in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras in an attempt to deal with the desperate circumstances...

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June 26, 2020
Bolton says Trump undermining Guaidó in Venezuela, soft on Russian support for Maduro

President Donald Trump's willingness to meet with embattled Venezuelan ruler Nicolás Maduro is harming the opposition and its leader, Juan Guaidó, former White House National Security Advisor John Bolton said...

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June 26, 2020
Criminal gangs for hire: Corrupt cops and the fight for votes in Haiti’s next elections

Earlier this month, a fired policeman wanted in the slaughter of dozens of men, women and children in one of Haiti's most impoverished slums donned a three-piece light blue suit...

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June 26, 2020
Security Council President on the UN Integrated Office in Haiti

Virtual stakeout by Anne Gueguen, Deputy Permanent Representative of France to the United Nations, and President of the Security Council for the month of June, on the UN Integrated Office...

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June 26, 2020
Acclaimed Russian director convicted but not sent to prison

A Moscow judge convicted an acclaimed Russian theater director of embezzling state funds and imposed a three-year suspended sentence Friday in a case widely seen as politically motivated. Kirill Serebrennikov,...

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June 26, 2020
Police say person shot in Glasgow has died; 6 others injured

The individual shot by armed police during an incident in Glasgow has died and six other people, including a police officer, were in a hospital being treated for injuries, Scottish...

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June 26, 2020
Iran to send Ukrainian jet’s black boxes to be read in France

Iran will be sending the black boxes of a Ukrainian passenger jet it shot down in January to France to be deciphered, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) said on...

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June 26, 2020
Gunmen wound Mexico City police chief in brazen attack that left three dead

Heavily armed gunmen shot and wounded Mexico City's police chief Friday in a brazen attack that left three people dead, including an innocent bystander, in one of the nation's wealthiest...

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June 26, 2020
Israel responds to Gaza rockets with strikes on Hamas targets

Israeli jets targeted Hamas positions early Saturday after rockets were fired at southern Israel earlier from the Gaza Strip, the Israeli armed forces said. "In response to the 2 rockets...

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June 26, 2020
After waves of COVID deaths, care homes face legal reckoning

The muffled, gagging sounds in the background of the phone call filled Monette Hayoun with dread. Was her severely disabled 85-year-old brother, Meyer, choking on his food? Was he slowly...

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June 26, 2020
Venezuelans take extraordinary steps to beat water shortage

Venezuela's economic collapse has left most homes without reliable running water, so Caracas resident Iraima Moscoso saw water pooling inside an abandoned construction site as the end of suffering for...

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