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Washington/Kirkuk, Iraq — Israeli airstrikes against Hezbollah are driving tens of thousands of Lebanese into Iraq — with more expected as the security situation deteriorates. The sudden influx is generating political concerns, especially in Iraq’s volatile Kirkuk region. Iraqi officials say that as of October 9, about 8,000 Lebanese refugees have entered Iraq. Kirkuk, a multi-ethnic province contested by Kurds, Arabs and Turkmens, is already burdened with unresolved demographic and political tensions. The situation has been acute since many internally displaced Iraqis from the war against Islamic State have settled in Kirkuk rather than return to their original provinces. A senior Kurdish official there expressed apprehension that the arrival of Lebanese refugees could further co...

washington — Recent arrests in the United States and in Europe have law enforcement and intelligence agencies on alert, bolstering concerns about a reinvigorated Islamic State terror group bent on lashing out against the West. FBI officials Wednesday confirmed the bureau shared information with French authorities following last week’s arrest of 27-year-old Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi, an Afghan national in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, on charges connected to a mass shooting plot in the name of the Islamic State group, to coincide with the U.S. election in November. That information led to the arrest of a 22-year-old Afghan national in the Haute-Garonne region of France, who French officials say is linked to Tawhedi. That arrest followed the arrests of three other men in the same region, again...

ISLAMABAD — Taliban authorities are looking into allegations that dozens of Afghan civilians were killed and injured by Iranian border forces while trying to enter that country from Pakistan illegally. Hamdullah Fitrat, the deputy Taliban spokesperson in Kabul, said Wednesday that "various governmental bodies" and Afghan diplomatic missions have initiated "comprehensive investigations" to verify the reported casualties. “As the incident is reported to have occurred beyond Afghanistan’s borders, the available information remains unverified,” Fitrat noted in his English-language statement posted on social media platform X. He added that a “conclusive decision” would be made after a “thorough clarification of the facts.” The Taliban probe was announced after an Iranian rights group, ...

EW YORK — The man once heralded as the architect of Mexico's war on drug cartels was sentenced to more than 38 years in a U.S. prison Wednesday for taking massive bribes to aid drug traffickers. Genaro García Luna, Mexico's former secretary of public security, was convicted by a New York jury in 2023 of taking millions of dollars in bribes to protect the violent Sinaloa cartel that he was supposedly combating. He is the highest-level Mexican government official to be convicted in the United States. At his sentencing hearing before a federal judge in Brooklyn on Wednesday, García Luna continued to maintain his innocence and said the case against him was based on false information from criminals and the Mexican government. "I have a firm respect for the law," he said in Spanish. "I ...

Washington — Russian-backed radio programmer Sputnik no longer broadcasts in the Washington market after years of criticism that its local radio station, WZHF, carries antisemitic content and false information about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Political cartoonist Ted Rall, who described himself as a guest on Sputnik’s programming, posted a comment Tuesday on X: “Biden/Harris say they're fighting for democracy. Yet: today Sputnik News US is being forced to shut down today due to Biden/Harris sanctions. My radio show and cartoons for them are being quashed. So are the other amazing shows. I go off the air with the station at noon.” Manila Chan, a self-described indie journalist, tweeted Tuesday that she and Rall would be relaunching their show on YouTube “following sanctions that ha...

MADRID — The recordings are not very clear but that is because they were taken clandestinely, in a Venezuelan courtroom.Jesus Medina Ezaine managed to record his appearances in court to try to prove his innocence against charges of inciting hate, money laundering, criminal association and obtaining illegal profits from the public administration. Medina, who denied all charges, faced up to 20 years in prison if convicted. A journalist for Dolar Today — an independent daily that is critical of Venezuela’s government — Medina later published extracts from the court hearings on social media to show he had accurately described how the Venezuelan legal system denies basic rights. Medina, who went into exile last month, said he has been persecuted by the government of President Nicolas M...

This month the Chinese Communist Party celebrated the 70th anniversary of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, or XPCC, a massive CCP-backed paramilitary group that functions as an armed force, corporate conglomerate and government administrative unit. China’s vice premier, He Lifeng, traveled to Urumqi, the capital of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, to join the festivities, which included a performance by dancers holding replicas of giant vegetables to symbolize the bounty XPCC has brought to the region through land reclamation projects. He and other CCP officials praised the corps for protecting China’s western border and promoting social stability and called for the group to take an even more expansive role in Xinjiang’s development. That won’t come as welcome ne...

Residents in North Korea are praying to small, handmade statues of Buddha for good fortune or hoping that they cancel out “bad luck,” residents told Radio Free Asia. North Korea is officially an atheist state, but its constitution guarantees religious freedom under certain conditions: religious practice must not encourage foreign influence or harm the state or the social order, and yet, the ruling Kim Dynasty enjoys almost god-like status, bolstered by a deeply embedded cult of personality that goes back three generations. But with so many people struggling to make a living under harsh economic conditions, some are turning to Buddha statues to give them luck. “These days, in the apartment I live in, there are more people who buy Buddha statues that are a little bigger than the pal...