CNN – World

By Mariya Knight, CNN (CNN) — A former staffer who accused Joe Biden of sexual assault has defected to Moscow, telling state media that she felt “safe” in Russia and would seek citizenship there. Tara Reade, who drew headlines during the 2020 presidential race by accusing then-candidate Biden of sexually harassing and assaulting her, said

By Nectar Gan, CNN Hong Kong (CNN) — Chinese leader Xi Jinping has called on his top national security officials to think about “worst case” scenarios and prepare for “stormy seas,” as the ruling Communist Party hardens efforts to counter any perceived internal and external threats. “The complexity and difficulty of the national security issues

By Paula Newton and Caitlin Hu, CNN (CNN) — Canada’s former Conservative Party leader Erin O’Toole has accused China of targeting him with misinformation and voter suppression campaigns during the 2021 election, while a Hong Kong-born Canadian lawmaker also said she was targeted for her human rights activism, both citing intelligence from Canada’s spy agency.

By Tatiana Arias, Duarte Mendonca, Julia Vargas Jones and Tara John, CNN (CNN) — Brazil’s lower house of Congress on Tuesday night approved a bill that would limit the recognition of ancestral lands in a vote met by protests from Indigenous groups. The bill, known as PL 490/2007, would strip the environment and Indigenous people

By Stefano Pozzebon, CNN (CNN) — Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva proposed creating a common currency in the region during a meeting with South American heads of state in Brasilia on Tuesday. The single currency would apply to the Mercosur trade bloc, comprised of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay, in Lula’s vision. Talk

By Nathan Hodge, CNN (CNN) — It’s a familiar routine for Ukrainians: Explosions ring out in the city, then videos emerge of drones overhead. Air defenses spring into action, and the authorities put out preliminary statements confirming a strike. But this time, the shattered glass and concrete is in the Russian capital, not Kyiv. Russia’s

By James Frater, Catherine Nicholls and Jack Guy, CNN (CNN) — A beluga whale widely speculated to be an alleged Russian “spy” has entered Swedish waters, according to OneWhale, an organization set up to protect the animal’s health and welfare. The whale, nicknamed Hvaldimir, garnered international fame in 2019 after being spotted wearing a specially

By Tara Subramaniam and Manveena Suri, CNN New Delhi (CNN) — A 16 year-old girl was brutally stabbed and bludgeoned to death in a busy public alleyway in India’s capital on Sunday, sparking renewed outrage over the safety of women in the country and violence perpetrated by men. Video of the incident, which lasted for

By Nectar Gan and Wayne Chang, CNN (CNN) — Thousands of ethnic minority Muslims surrounded a mosque in southwestern China over the weekend in a last-ditch effort to prevent what they said was an attempt by authorities to remove its dome and minarets, as a crackdown on religious freedoms widens. The apparent alteration of a

By Brad Lendon, CNN (CNN) — Malaysian authorities have detained a Chinese-flagged cargo ship amid reports of the salvaging of World War II shipwrecks in Malaysia’s exclusive economic zone, according to a report from the state-run Bernama news agency. The ship was detained and boarded after it was found not to have authorization to anchor

By Stefano Pozzebon, CNN Bogota, Colombia (CNN) — “We had not been in air for more than 30 seconds… suddenly, the engine started coughing. We could see the propeller slowing down and the plane losing altitude,” says Diego Londoño, a 30-year-old man from the remote Colombian Amazon town of Mitú, who was flying from his

By Vasco Cotovio, Frederik Pleitgen and William Bonnett, CNN Chernihiv, Ukraine (CNN) — The loud engine announces the approach of the Soviet-era armored BTR vehicle long before it appears – racing through a grassy plain on the outskirts of Chernihiv in northern Ukraine. Suddenly it stops, its door opens and Ukrainian soldiers rush out, storming

By Natasha Bertrand and Jennifer Hansler, CNN (CNN) — China has rejected a United States proposal for Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to meet with his Chinese counterpart Li Shangfu at the Shangri-La Dialogue Security Forum in Singapore this week, according to a Pentagon statement. China’s opposition to the meeting comes amid strained relations between the

By Simone McCarthy (CNN) — China sent its first civilian astronaut into orbit on Tuesday, as it launched the Shenzhou-16 mission to its space station for its second in-orbit crew rotation, marking another step forward for the country’s ambitious space program. The three Shenzhou-16 astronauts blasted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the

By Brad Lendon, CNN (CNN) — Staff Sgt. Ken Wallingford had only days left to serve in the US Army when he found himself trapped – and seconds away from being burned alive. He’d spent the previous night hiding in a bunker with another soldier at a base that had been overrun by the North

CNN Editorial Research (CNN) — Here’s a look at the life of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, current president and former prime minister of Turkey. Personal Birth date: February 26, 1954 Birth place: Istanbul, Turkey Birth name: Recep Tayyip Erdogan Father: Ahmet Erdogan, coastguard and sea captain Mother: Tenzile Erdogan Marriage: Emine (Gulbaran) Erdogan (July 4, 1978-present)

By Mengchen Zhang and Caolán Magee, CNN (CNN) — The Chinese city of Shanghai recorded its highest May temperature in more than 100 years on Monday, hitting a record 36.1 degrees Celsius (nearly 97 degrees Fahrenheit). The previous record of 35.7 degrees Celsius (96.3 degrees Fahrenheit) was first recorded in May 1876 and has been

By Stephanie Busari, CNN (CNN) — Nigeria’s President-elect Bola Ahmed Tinubu was sworn into office Monday, against the backdrop of a fractured nation, an ailing economy and spiraling insecurity. The ceremony took place amid tight security at the 5,000-capacity Eagle Square venue in the capital, Abuja. A national public holiday was declared and Nigerians without

By Niamh Kennedy and Caolán Magee, CNN (CNN) — The bodies of four people have been recovered from Lake Maggiore in northern Italy after a tourist boat capsized on Sunday evening, Italy’s fire service has said. Search and rescue operations have now concluded after the last body was recovered at 8 a.m. local time (2

By Al Goodman, CNN Madrid (CNN) — Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has announced snap parliamentary elections in July, hours after his ruling Socialists suffered major setbacks in regional and local elections. In a nationally televised statement, Sanchez said he had informed Spain’s King Felipe VI, the head of state, to hold parliamentary elections on

By David McKenzie and Eve Brennan, CNN (CNN) — Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni has signed some of the harshest anti-LGBTQ laws in the world, the speaker of parliament said, defying international pressure, including from the United States which said it was “deeply troubled.” The bill includes the death penalty for “aggravated homosexuality’ which includes sex

By Rhea Mogul, CNN (CNN) — Some of India’s top female wrestlers were detained by police Sunday, in a chaotic escalation of a weeks-long protest against the president of the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI), who they accuse of sexual harassment. Olympians Vinesh Phogat and Sakshi Malik were among those held as they attempted to

By Emiko Jozuka Tokyo (CNN) — Japan’s Defense Ministry warned on Monday it would destroy any North Korean missile that enters its territory after Pyongyang notified the country of plans to launch a “satellite” between May 31 and June 11. “We will take destructive measures against ballistic and other missiles that are confirmed to land

By Tara Subramaniam, CNN (CNN) — Melbourne was shaken Sunday by a rare and shallow earthquake – the largest earthquake to hit the Australian city in over a century – swaying buildings but ultimately causing very little damage. Preliminary information indicated the 3.8-magnitude quake struck the northwestern suburb of Sunbury at 11:41 pm local time

By Kathleen Magramo and CNN’s Beijing Bureau (CNN) — Giant panda Ya Ya has become an internet sensation again after Chinese state media showed images of her arriving at her new home in Beijing on Sunday, following an end to her quarantine since returning from the United States. On Weibo, China’s heavily restricted version of

By Mariya Knight, Uliana Pavlova and Helen Regan, CNN (CNN) — Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko has claimed that nations who are willing “to join the Union State of Russia and Belarus” will be given nuclear weapons, days after confirming the transfer of some tactical nuclear weapons from Moscow to Minsk had begun. Lukashenko, a close

By Sahar Akbarzai, CNN (CNN) — Nearly 1.4 million people have now been displaced in Sudan since conflict between two rival generals erupted in April, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said Sunday in a new report that exposes the scale of the catastrophe engulfing the African nation. Even before

By Mick Krever, Niamh Kennedy and Sophie Tanno, CNN (CNN) — Dutch police arrested over 1,500 people after Extinction Rebellion protesters blocked a motorway in The Hague on Saturday. Hundreds of police were deployed to “maintain public order” during the climate protest, Dutch police said in a press release Saturday. According to police, shortly before

By Kunal Sehgal, CNN (CNN) — A government official in India who drained a reservoir to retrieve a phone he dropped while taking a selfie has been suspended from his job. More than 2 million liters of water were pumped out of the Paralkot reservoir, over a period of four days, in an effort to

By Gul Tuysuz, Yusuf Gezer and Tamara Qiblawi, CNN (CNN) — President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has won Turkey’s presidential election, defeating opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu in Sunday’s runoff vote and stretching his rule into a third decade. With 99.43% of the votes counted, preliminary official results announced by Turkey’s Supreme Election Council (YSK) on Sunday

By Josh Pennington and Irene Nasser, CNN (CNN) — Russia launched its largest drone attack of the conflict yet on Ukraine’s capital Kyiv, leaving one person dead and sparking fires across the city early on Sunday. In an update late Sunday, the General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces said Russia unleashed 59 Iranian Shahed drones

By Laura Paddison, CNN (CNN) — Wind turbines are built to last. Their tall bodies are topped with long fiberglass blades, some more than half a football field in length, made to withstand the harshest, windiest conditions. But this sturdiness brings a big problem: What to do with these blades when they reach the end

By Olga Voitovych, Andrew Carey and Nick Paton Walsh, CNN Kyiv, Ukraine (CNN) — With just a few words and a slickly produced piece of military propaganda, the commander in chief of Ukraine’s armed forces ratcheted up speculation that a long-awaited counteroffensive by Kyiv against Russia’s occupying forces could be imminent. “The time has come

By Vasco Cotovio, Frederik Pleitgen, William Bonnett and Svitlana Vlasova, CNN (CNN) — The drive takes us through unmarked roads and fresh trails in a remote wooded area. “We’re nearly there,” our driver signals, pointing at a dot on a map, a location shared by the Ukrainian military. We turn a corner and, in the

By Abeer Salman and Hadas Gold, CNN Jerusalem (CNN) — Israeli settler attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank Friday left a man in critical condition and drew international condemnation, including from the US. Settlers on Friday attacked local farmers and set cars and farms alight near the villages of Turmosayia and Al Mughayyer north

By Nadeen Ebrahim, CNN (CNN) — Turkey’s long-term leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan is going up against opposition candidate Kemal Kilicdaroglu in Sunday’s run-off presidential election. The build-up to the first round suggested a narrow race, with Erdogan facing unprecedented pressure after 20 years in power. Instead Erdogan defied expectations and only narrowly missed out on

By Chris Lau, CNN Hong Kong (CNN) — A social media influencer died soon after live-streaming himself drinking several bottles of strong alcohol on China’s version of TikTok, state-run media in the country are reporting, in a development likely to renew debate about how to regulate the industry. The influencer “Sanqiange” (or “Brother Three Thousand”)

By Laura Paddison, CNN (CNN) — “Murderers.” “Criminals.” “We are watching you.” These are just a handful of the threats and abuse sent to meteorologists at AEMET, Spain’s national weather agency, in recent months. They come via social media, its website, letters, phone calls – even in the form of graffiti sprayed across one of

By Jonny Hallam and Hira Humayun, CNN (CNN) — Al-Shabaab fighters launched a deadly attack on an African Union military base in Somalia on Friday, with both sides reportedly suffering heavy casualties. The militant fighters attacked a forward operating base in Buulo Mareer, about 120 kilometers southwest of Mogadishu, the African Union Transition Mission in

By CNN’s Rafael Romo (CNN) — Scott Lieberman, an American who lives in San Francisco, always knew that he was adopted from Chile. What he did not know was that he had been stolen as an infant. “I lived 42 years of my life without knowing that I was stolen, not knowing what was happening

By Angus Watson and Chris Lau, CNN Sydney/Hong Kong (CNN) — A hostage video released by West Papuan independence fighters Friday includes a warning from captive New Zealander Philip Mehrtens, saying the group is ready to kill him. The rebels took the pilot captive in February, demanding seccession talks with Indonesia involving regional powers Australia

By Radina Gigova, CNN (CNN) — Firearms manufacturer Kalashnikov has unveiled an upgraded AK-12 assault rifle, with modifications based on the weapon’s use in the war on Ukraine. Kalashnikov Group Chief Designer Sergey Urzhumtsev told Russian state media TASS on Friday the upgrade followed “input” gathered from “experience of the gun’s use in the special

By Richard Roth and Heather Law, CNN (CNN) — United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres was “shocked,” according to his spokesman, by a letter received on Friday from Sudan’s military ruler General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan reportedly asking that his envoy to Sudan be removed. “The Secretary-General is proud of the work done by (UN special

By Brad Lendon, CNN (CNN) — It’s a day seared into America’s collective memory: December 7, 1941. The day Imperial Japanese warplanes launched a devastating surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, sinking or damaging 19 US Navy ships, destroying 180 US aircraft and killing more than 2,400 Americans, servicemen and civilians. “A day that will

By Mia Alberti, CNN (CNN) — The United Nations has chosen Brazil to host the international climate meeting, COP30, in the Amazonian city of Belém do Pará in 2025, the country’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva announced on Friday. “I’ve participated in COPs in Egypt, Paris, Copenhagen and all people talk about is the

By Jackie Wattles, CNN (CNN) — A lunar lander likely plummeted 3 miles before smashing into the lunar surface after a historic attempt to make a soft touchdown on the moon, the Japanese company Ispace revealed Friday. The misstep can probably be traced to a software issue and an incorrect measurement of the spacecraft’s altitude

By Delia Gallagher, Xiaofei Xu, Rob Picheta and Sophie Tanno, CNN Rome (CNN) — Pope Francis Saturday addressed a conference attended by prominent artists and directors including Martin Scorsese, a day after he canceled his regular work schedule due to a fever. Returning to his duties on Saturday, Francis made a speech at the event

By Mostafa Salem, Catherine Nicholls and James Frater, CNN (CNN) — A Belgian aid worker who was imprisoned in Iran for more than a year has been freed after the Gulf state of Oman said it had facilitated a prisoner swap deal. The aid worker, Olivier Vandecasteele, is set to arrive in Belgium later Friday,

By Nadeen Ebrahim, CNN (CNN) — A recently as March, Iran’s national security chief found himself on the front pages of the world’s top news outlets as he shook hands with a Saudi minister in a landmark deal brokered by China. That was perhaps the biggest international moment in Ali Shamkhani’s career – and possibly

By Gianluca Mezzofiore, Bethlehem Feleke and Eve Brennan, CNN (CNN) — Eritrean forces prevented a UN-led humanitarian mission from entering a village in the northern Ethiopian region of Tigray on Thursday, in what would mark violation of a peace deal ending fighting in the area, aid workers on the ground told CNN. After two years

By Nima Elbagir and Eve Brennan, CNN (CNN) — The US Treasury has sanctioned the head of the Wagner private military group in Mali, Ivan Maslov, as part of its pushback against Wagner activities in Africa funneling support to Russia’s war against Ukraine, according to a press release published on Thursday. The sanctions come after

By Lauren Said-Moorhouse and Max Foster, CNN (CNN) — Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II faced a potential assassination threat 40 years ago, ahead of a trip to the United States, according to newly released documents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. A cache of 103 pages were posted to the FBI’s online records site, The Vault,

By Hilary Whiteman, CNN Brisbane, Australia (CNN) — Since about the birth of boomers, comparing the strengths and weaknesses of generations has been a perilous exercise almost guaranteed to cause offense. So when Australia’s Federal Police (AFP) Commissioner offered an “interesting” aside on generational differences while addressing senators in Parliament House on Thursday, there was

By Emiko Jozuka, Junko Ogura, Xiaofei Xu and Rhea Mogul, CNN Tokyo (CNN) — The son of a local Japanese government official is in police custody after allegedly going on a shooting and stabbing rampage in the central city of Nakano on Thursday, a rare crime in a country with tough gun laws and a

By Christian Edwards, CNN Tbilisi, Georgia (CNN) — Above Tbilisi’s Old Town stands the Mother of Georgia statue, like a less imposing Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro. “Kartlis Deda,” as she is known to Georgians, holds a wine cup in her left hand and a sword in her right. She offers a choice

By Lauren Kent and Salma Abdelaziz, CNN (CNN) — The waters of the Caspian Sea appear deceptively calm. But this sea route – which provides a direct path between Iran and Russia – is increasingly busy with cargo traffic, including suspected weapons transfers from Tehran to Moscow. As cooperation between the two countries deepens, the

By Melissa Gray and Sania Farooqui, CNN New Delhi (CNN) — Three cheetah cubs have died in India this week, dealing yet another setback to a historic effort by the government to reintroduce the species to the country after 70 years of extinction. The cubs were part of a litter of four born in late

By Mia Alberti and Julia Jones, CNN (CNN) — A game entitled “Slavery Simulator,” where players can “buy and sell” enslaved Black characters, has been taken down from Google’s app store after widespread criticism from Brazilian social media users. The app, developed by Magnus Games, was launched on Google’s Play Store on April 20 and