The brothers fit what European anti-terrorism investigators call a disturbing but now-familiar profile. They were young Belgian nationals of Moroccan descent, both with extensive criminal records involving violent crime and guns. But neither had been previously linked to terrorism, Belgium's chief...
The physical damage was easy to see. The attackers' bombs shattered an airport terminal and a subway station. But when one of the European Union's top leaders expressed his sympathies to the men, women and children hurt and killed in Brussels on Tuesday morning, he hinted that the three attackers...
Seeking to build trust between the United States and Latin America, President Obama reiterated his promise to release classified documents that could shed light on U.S. involvement in Argentina's "dirty war." "I hope we can reconstruct the confidence that was lost between our two countries," he...
The Islamic State group has trained at least 400 fighters to target Europe in deadly waves of attacks, deploying interlocking terrorist cells like the ones that struck Brussels and Paris with orders to choose the time, place and method for maximum carnage, the Associated Press has learned. The...
Every day after school, 15-year-old Inamul, usually clad in flip-flops, spends an hour or two wandering the giant landfill near his house. Ignoring the stench and the colonies of rats, he collects plastic bottles, cheap jewelry, glass, bits of wood and anything else that he can resell to a scrap...
Even as it is being welcomed back into the international community, Iran is continuing to violate the most basic civil and political rights of its people and needs continued monitoring, advocates who are pushing for greater freedoms in the Islamic Republic contend. The activists, including dozens...
Some people travel the world to surf, to hike, to visit art museums or dine at Michelin-starred restaurants. Baz Dreisinger goes to prisons. Dreisinger, an associate professor of English at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, spent two years on a pilgrimage to prisons in nine...
Officially, the legal issue at hand was a misdemeanor charge of perjury. But in many ways the day’s proceedings also concerned Sandra Bland, the black woman whose death in jail last summer fueled criticism of police and their treatment of minorities. Former Texas state Trooper Brian T. Encinia,...
President Obama ended his historic trip to Cuba with a challenge to its communist leaders Tuesday, pressing them to keep pace with the changes he set in motion for a new era in the relationship between the neighboring nations.More than half a century after revolution in Cuba put the two countries...
From his perch up near the rafters, Jose Aballi Azahares took it all in: the packed stadium, the giant cameras, the leaders of two countries – sworn enemies until recently – sitting side by side behind home base. But Aballi wasn’t watching the presidents, Barack Obama and Raul Castro, who attended...
Among those injured in Tuesday's terror attacks in Brussels were several Americans, including a group of Mormon missionaries and a U.S. serviceman and his family. Islamic State claimed responsibility for the three explosions, which left dozens dead and scores more injured. Here is what is known...
In an era when celebrity is fueled by antics caught on video, former Toronto Mayor Rob Ford was an unwitting superstar. Clips and photos of him smoking crack, incoherently raging and making profane statements went viral during his time as mayor, providing ample material for late-night TV. City...
Three Syrian nationals have been charged by U.S. authorities with being members of a notorious hacking group that launched high-profile attacks on U.S. government and media targets, including one in 2013 that briefly sent stock markets tumbling. The three men are allegedly part of the Syrian Electronic...
Below the Pol-e Sokhta bridge on the western outskirts of the Afghan capital, hundreds of homeless drug addicts live in squalor. The smell of human waste and smoke from opium pipes fills the air. Some people who do not live in the filth cannot resist their curiosity, so they come by to stare. Mohammad,...
Standing next to President Obama, Cuban President Raul Castro itemized remaining grievances with the U.S. that stood in the way of full normalization of relations. At the top of the list: the half-century-long U.S. trade embargo, and what he called the illegal occupation of Guantanamo Bay. Both...
Every 10 days or so Rajabhau Deshmukh buys enough water for his family of six to drink and to irrigate what farmland he can in the drought-stricken Beed district of southern Maharashtra state in India. Seventy dollars gets him about 2,642 gallons, an allotment that falls so short of his farming...
Malian police say extremists have attacked the European Union military mission in the capital, Bamako. Sgt. Baba Dembele from the anti-terrorism unit in Bamako told an Associated Press reporter at the scene Monday night that it was believed some attackers had entered the luxury hotel where the...
Saying he hoped to bury a last vestige of the Cold War, President Obama held a historic meeting with Cuban President Raul Castro on Monday but acknowledged that issues of human rights and democracy remained “a powerful irritant” blocking better relations between the two countries.On a day when...
Authorities are searching for 24-year-old Najim Laachraoui, who they believe was an accomplice in the Paris terror attacks, Belgian prosecutors announced Monday. Laachraoui's DNA was found in houses used by the alleged attackers in the Brussels neighborhoods of Auvelais and Schaerbeek, the prosecutor's...
Chinese authorities have recovered a massive haul of smuggled python skin worth $48 million, Chinese media reported on Monday, highlighting the scope of an international black market trade in the scaly, patterned material. Customs agents in Haikou, a port city in China’s southern island province...
Fatima Rezai's journey to Greece took 40 days and 40 nights. From Afghanistan's Ghazni province she and her family trekked to Iran, then Turkey, took a boat to Samos, Greece, and then another to Piraeus. Now, the only journey Fatima takes is the one from her refugee camp in Hellinikon, site of...
Nasir Dogru says his son must have been important. He has often seen the 18-year-old on local Kurdish television channels, his smiling face flashing across the screen. Perhaps he was a commander, he says. Neighbors and friends say so too. They call the teenager, Ferhat Dogru, a martyr. "He was...
In recent years, Afro-Cuban intellectuals have started gathering in a cramped Havana apartment to discuss a topic long considered off-limits in Cuba: race. Fidel Castro’s communist revolution 60 years ago promised to wipe out racial divisions and level the playing field for all Cubans, regardless...
This is not, at first glance, a very Trump-like place. A tidy village in Germany's wine country, Kallstadt is home to modest people, modest houses and an open, welcoming attitude toward outsiders — immigrants, tourists and oenophiles alike. It is also home to people who claim an ancestral relationship...
There are things Zhang Feng likes about Japan: the service, the quality products, the immaculate restrooms, even in malls and highway rest stops. There are things she dislikes, such as sashimi and left-hand traffic. But what never crosses her mind is the intense historical antagonism between Japan...
The key witness to a brutal arson attack on a Palestinian family now finds his own home destroyed by flames. When a Molotov cocktail sent Riham and Saad Dawabshe’s home up in flames last year, killing the couple and their 18-month-old son, their cousin Ibrahim Dawabshe heard their screams from...
President Obama set foot in Cuba on Sunday, the first sitting U.S. president in nearly 90 years to visit this island nation, amid hopes that his push to mend a half-century of Cold War enmity will launch a new era of cooperation.“This is a historic visit and a historic opportunity,” Obama said...
All three branches of Brazil's government are accused of wrongdoing. Old political heroes are being cast in new, unflattering light. And streets across the country have been filled with hundreds of thousands of demonstrators. Ge de Souza, a doorman in downtown Sao Paulo, pointed to streets Saturday...
President Obama will be the first U.S. chief executive to travel to Cuba since Calvin Coolidge, and during a two-day tour will address a large audience in Havana, watch a baseball game (Tampa Bay Rays versus the Cuban national team) and even dine at the Palace of the Revolution. But will he sample...
South African President Jacob Zuma is facing allegations that he allowed a powerful family to engineer the hiring and firing of Cabinet ministers. Members of his own ruling party, the African National Congress, have come forward in recent days claiming that members of the Gupta family offered them...
A suicide bomber struck the heart of Istanbul's tourist district on Saturday, killing at least four people and injuring 39, including many foreign nationals, authorities said. The target, a bustling central avenue frequented by foreign visitors, suggested that the bombing was the latest attempt...
Nine Cuban migrants died at sea and 18 were rescued by a cruise ship after their 30-foot boat was found about 130 miles from the Florida coast, the U.S. Coast Guard said. The migrants were severely dehydrated when they were found Friday and said they had been at sea 22 days. The bodies of those...
Cuba is preparing for a Category Five storm. Locals are calling it Hurricane Obama. When President Obama touches down Sunday night in Havana — the first American leader to visit in nearly 90 years – he will find freshly paved streets and hotels that have been cleared of tourists to make room for...
On the eve of President Obama’s historic visit to Cuba, authorities there are ordering dissidents invited to meet with the American leader to stay home instead, a leading human rights activist said Saturday.Elizardo Sanchez, a Cuban anti-government activist who chronicles political detentions month-to-month,...
For one young couple in Havana, improving relations between the U.S. and Cuba weren't a sign of hope, but a signal to get out. In January, Leonid Castro used fake papers to travel to Mexico and then the U.S. border, where he asked for political asylum. A few months from now, his wife plans to join...
Last year, on the eve of the Persian New Year, amateur cellphone video captured by hundreds of mostly young men showed a crowd beating a young woman, her face covered in blood. She pleaded for her life and denied their accusation — that she had burned pages from the Koran. After she was dead, they...
The largest manhunt in Europe came to a dramatic end Friday when police in Belgium arrested a fugitive linked to the Paris terrorist attacks that killed 130 people in November.Salah Abdeslam, a 26-year-old French national who grew up in Brussels, was captured in a raid that sent loud bursts of...
Turkey and the European Union clinched a landmark deal Friday aimed at stopping thousands of migrants from attempting to reach European shores.After two days of negotiations in Brussels, the sides finally agreed to a plan that will effectively send any migrants who attempt to cross the Aegean Sea...
Simon Lai has no personal need for tampons. But this year, the resident of southern China’s Guangdong province expects to buy more than half a million dollars worth of the feminine hygiene products in Los Angeles, ship them across the Pacific, and sell them for a good profit. His business on Alibaba’s...
After FBI digital forensic experts broke into Faisal Mohammad’s laptop, they found that the 18-year-old was drawn to the flashy terrorist propaganda of Islamic State and “self-radicalized” before stabbing four people at UC Merced last fall. The discovery announced Thursday, almost four months after...
Although China’s carbon dioxide emissions have soared in the past 30 years and the country has become the largest greenhouse gas contributor, China is responsible for just 10% of global warming since the pre-industrial era, according to a new study published in the science journal Nature. China’s...
Cuba has stood for decades in U.S. politics as a bitter symbol of the Cold War, but the recent diplomatic thaw is scrambling that narrative as Americans increasingly see the Caribbean island nation as a land of exotic tourism and lucrative business opportunities. Even as those giddy expectations...