WORLD

Washington, United States | AFP | The White House has launched an internal probe of the use of private email for official business by senior aides to President Donald Trump, news outlet Politico reported Thursday. The administration is scouring the White House server for emails to and from private email accounts …

Brussels, Belgium | AFP | The European Union is launching an interactive online map Friday to help businesses and officials steer through the jungle of international sanctions in force against regimes, organisations and individuals around the world. With around 30 to 40 international sanctions regimes in force against regimes such as …

Ankara, Turkey | AFP | Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told the United States Thursday that Turkey could release a jailed American pastor if Washington handed over exiled Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen who Ankara blames for last year’s failed coup. The US pastor, Andrew Brunson, has been held by Turkish authorities …

Beijing, China | AFP | Chinese internet giant Baidu has teamed up with the country’s cyber police to control the spread of rumors and fake news, the company said Thursday, as authorities continue to tighten censorship ahead a major Communist Party congress next month. Baidu, known as China’s answer to …

Ottawa, Canada | AFP | Netflix will spend Can$500 million (US$400 million) over the next five years to make original films and television shows in Canada, the company and Heritage Minister Melanie Joly announced Thursday. This amounts to about five percent of the video streaming service’s estimated total US$7 billion production …

Barcelona, Spain | AFP | Police on Thursday seized more than six million ballots and envelopes and 100 ballot boxes in a Catalan town, in the latest bid to block a banned independence referendum, a police source said. The seizures are the latest in a long list of items confiscated by …

Washington, United States | AFP | A Russian media group with links to the Moscow government spent $274,000 in 2016 on Twitter ads which may have been used to try to influence the US election, the social media firm said Thursday. Twitter said it shared data with congressional investigators about ads …

Miami, United States | AFP | Zika has been around for decades but only recently began to cause birth defects due to a single mutation the mosquito-borne virus likely acquired in 2013, researchers said Thursday. The report in the US journal Science explains for the first time how this once relatively …

Chicago, United States | AFP | Two toddlers were hospitalized in serious condition after a playmate accidentally shot them with a loaded gun at a daycare in the US state of Michigan. Both of the children’s conditions were upgraded from critical a day earlier, police said Thursday, as they wrapped up …

Chicago, United States | AFP | Otto Warmbier, the American student who died days after being released from North Korea in a coma, displayed no obvious signs of torture despite assertions by his parents and President Donald Trump, an Ohio medical examiner said Wednesday. The coroner said the 22-year-old, who had …