Month: August 2023

Ukrainian troops using Android mobile devices are coming under attack from Russian hackers, who are using a new kind of malware to try to steal information critical to the ongoing counteroffensive. Cyber officials from the United States, along with counterparts from Australia, Britain, Canada and New Zealand, issued a warning Thursday about the malware, named …

Russia has been using sham websites to obtain the personal information of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers and their family members, U.S. defense officials say, in what they believe is an attempt to detain the family members who are living in occupied Ukraine and deport them to Russia. Two U.S. defense officials say a Russian information …

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak named Grant Shapps as his new defense minister Thursday following the resignation of defense chief Ben Wallace.  Shapps had been serving as secretary of energy security. Wallace, who led Britain’s military response to the war in Ukraine, signaled his intention to step down last month and issued a formal letter …

U.N.-backed human rights experts focusing on racial discrimination urged Italy’s government to do more to eliminate violence, hate speech, stigmatization and harassment against Africans and people of African descent. They also expressed concern that no legal cases have been brought to punish fans and others for racist acts at sports events. The Committee on the …

Russian officials said Thursday the country’s air defenses shot down a Ukrainian drone flying toward Moscow. The Russian defense ministry said the drone was destroyed over the Voskresensky district. Sergei Sobyanin, Moscow’s mayor, said on Telegram there were no reports of casualties or damage. Ukraine on Wednesday launched a wave of drone attacks aimed at …

Fiji will sign a defense agreement with France, after the Cabinet of the Pacific Islands nation approved the deal, Fiji’s government said in a statement Thursday. France’s President Emmanuel Macron in July toured the Pacific Islands, where France has overseas territories, denouncing predatory behavior by big powers in a region where China is extending trade …

United Nations sanctions on Mali will end on Thursday after Russia vetoed a renewal of the measures me that targeted anyone violating or obstructing a 2015 peace deal, hindering aid delivery, committing rights abuses or recruiting child soldiers. Independent U.N. sanctions monitors reported to the Security Council this month that Mali’s troops and its foreign …

England will bring forward the start of its autumn flu and COVID-19 vaccination programs as a precautionary step after the identification of highly mutated COVID variant BA.2.86, which has been found in Britain.  Scientists have said BA.2.86, an offshoot of the omicron variant, was unlikely to cause a devastating wave of severe disease and death, …

Millions of children across Ukraine and in seven neighboring asylum countries are being deprived of an education and the skills needed to help Ukraine recover from the devastation caused by Russia’s invasion of their country, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund, or UNICEF. “Inside Ukraine, attacks on schools have continued unabated, leaving children deeply …

When Pope Francis travels to Mongolia this week, he will in some ways be completing a mission begun by the 13th-century Pope Innocent IV, who dispatched emissaries east to ascertain the intentions of the rapidly expanding Mongol Empire and beseech its leaders to halt the bloodshed and convert. Those medieval exchanges between Roman pope and …