Protests against COVID-19 restrictions, some of them turning violent, rocked Europe over the weekend. Also, Sudan's top military commander reinstates Abdulla Hamdok, but as interim prime minister, until new elections are held. And, two of 17 missionaries kidnapped in October have been released in Haiti.
Armenians have evacuated houses —and attended church services — in the remote region handed over to Baku's control recently as part of a Russian-administered peace deal.
Thursday night’s presidential debate in Nashville, Tenn., focused extensively on foreign policy topics, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is to meet Friday with the foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan, and Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari has urged demonstrators who have taken to the streets against police brutality to end their protests.
Heavy fighting continued Friday over Nagorno-Karabakh even as top diplomats from Armenia and Azerbaijan traveled to Washington for negotiations on settling the neighboring countries' decades-long conflict.
Immigration lawyers representing families that were separated upon entering the US at the southern border say 545 children remain completely cut off from their parents, protesters in Nigeria’s biggest city appeared to break an around-the-clock curfew amid widespread chaos, and with fresh clashes continuing in Nagorno-Karabakh, the coronavirus is spreading unchecked.
Armenia and Azerbaijan on Monday accused each other of attacks over the separatist territory of Nagorno-Karabakh despite a cease-fire deal brokered by Russia in an effort to end the worst outbreak of hostilities in the region in decades.
Health authorities in Europe are bracing for new surges of the coronavirus, this time with concerns over “pandemic fatigue” as a growing number of regions return to lockdown restrictions. And, North Korea’s Kim Jong-un unveiled several new weapons including a large intercontinental ballistic missile carried on an 11-axle vehicle; Also Armenia and Azerbaijan were again accusing each other of attacks over the separatist Nagorno-Karabakh region despite a ceasefire deal.
The UN’s World Food Program has won the Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of its efforts to combat hunger in conflict regions on several continents, talks in Moscow planned for Friday have raised hopes for a ceasefire in the ongoing Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, and China announced on Friday its intention to join COVAX, an international alliance to distribute COVID-19 vaccines to around two-thirds of the world’s population by 2022.
The US vice presidential candidates battled on Wednesday evening in Salt Lake City with foreign policy topics taking up a solid chunk of time, Russia looks at a handful of chaotic scenes in its backyard — from Belarus and the Caucasus to Central Asia — and Brazil’s reported cases of the coronavirus passed the 5 million mark this week.
With Turkey backing Azerbaijan and the Armenians turning for help to Iran and Russia, the tinderbox in the South Caucasus could ignite into a larger conflagration. Simon Saradzhyan, director of the Russia Matters Project at the Harvard Kennedy School, explains why.
The US, Russia and France are jointly demanding an immediate ceasefire and return to negotiations without delay in the breakaway Caucasus region of Nagorno-Karabakh. And, Cyprus is blocking EU economic on Belarus, demanding that Brussels also punish Turkey for its oil and gas exploration in the Eastern Mediterranean. Also, police in Hong Kong have arrested at least 60 people for protesting on China’s National Day.