WORLD

Moscow, Russia | AFP |  Moscow was set for fresh protests Saturday, the latest in a wave of demonstrations that has seen tens of thousands take to the streets after opposition figures were banned from local elections a month ago. The rallies, which have taken place every Saturday since the ruling, …

Paris, France | AFP |  The Iron Curtain was at first an ideological and then a physical separation of communist Eastern Europe from the West from the 1940s after World War II. – The name –    The term “iron curtain” was popularised after it was used by former British prime …

Tihany, Hungary | AFP |  When Hungary’s former leader Miklos Nemeth first started poking a hole through the Iron Curtain in 1989, he had no idea how quickly his actions would contribute to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of communism in central and eastern Europe. In an …

London, United Kingdom | AFP | Jeremy Corbyn urged anti-Boris Johnson MPs to make him Britain’s caretaker prime minister to avoid a no-deal Brexit — but his proposal met with a mixed response on Thursday. The Labour main opposition leader said once in power, he would seek to delay Britain’s October …

Sydney, Australia | AFP | Judges will rule next week on Australian Cardinal George Pell’s appeal against his conviction on multiple child sex abuse charges, court officials announced Thursday. Pell, 78, the former Vatican number three, was sentenced in March to six years in prison for sexually assaulting two choirboys in …

Stanytsya Luganska, Ukraine | AFP |  While Ukrainian troops were stationed in her village, Anna felt safe despite living on the frontline of a war that has claimed thousands of lives over the last five years. But since they started to withdraw two months ago from Stanytsya Luganska, eastern Ukraine, she …

Moscow, Russia | AFP | A Russian pilot was being hailed as a hero on Thursday for landing an Airbus carrying more than 230 people in a Moscow corn field after a bird strike. The Ural Airlines A321 flying to Crimea hit a flock of seagulls shortly after take-off from Moscow’s …

Berkeley Heights, United States | AFP |  President Donald Trump is on summer vacation. Just don’t call it that. “It’s never a vacation,” he said before leaving the White House last Friday for the 10-day non-vacation at his luxury golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey. The former real estate dealer …

The Lambahraun lava field, Iceland | AFP |  To prepare for the next mission to Mars in 2020, NASA has taken to the lava fields of Iceland to get its new robotic space explorer ready for the job. With its black basalt sand, wind-swept dunes and craggy peaks, the Lambahraun …

Paris, France | AFP | A deadly explosion at a Russian testing site has focused attention on President Vladimir Putin’s bid to build a nuclear-powered missile that the Kremlin hopes would give Moscow the edge in a new arms race. Western experts have linked the blast at the Nyonoksa test site …