Breakup of United Methodist Church over LGBTQ policies unleashes deadly violence in Nigeria
While the Global Methodist Church, at its general conference in May, lifted its longstanding bans on LGBTQ ordination and same-sex marriage, it also granted local conferences the right to set their own standards. The West Africa Central Conference, which includes Nigeria, restricts marriage to between a man and a woman and instructs its churches to follow national laws on LGBTQ issues, according to the news service.
Mass graves sites in Syria expose ousted President Assad’s ‘machinery of deat’ with about 100,00 killed
An international war crimes prosecutor said on Tuesday that evidence emerging from mass grave sites in Syria has exposed a state-run “machinery of death” under toppled leader Bashar al-Assad in which he estimated more than 100,000 people were tortured and murdered since 2013. Speaking after visiting two mass grave sites...
Ukraine kills top Russian general in Moscow it accuses of chemical weapons crimes
Former president Dmitry Medvedev, now a senior Russian security official, was cited by the state RIA news agency as saying that Ukraine’s military and political leadership now faced imminent revenge for Kirillov’s murder.
High ranking Russian general accused by Kyiv of chemical weapon crimes killed by bomb in Moscow
Russia has accused Ukraine of carrying out a string of targeted assassinations on its soil since the start of Moscow’s full-scale war on Ukraine in February 2022.
Genetically engineered crops caused farmers billions of dollars in market losses from transgenic contamination, now US federal court rules GMOs must be regulated
The December 3 ruling overturns the 2020 rule overhaul by the first Trump administration that had eliminated most government oversight over GE crops, trees and grasses. The court held that the previous regulations violated the Plant Protection Act and the Administrative Procedure Act.
Kenyan man sentenced to 50 years in jail for killing LGBTQ activist who police say was his lover
Homosexuality is taboo in Kenya and gay sex is punishable by 14 years in prison, although that law is rarely enforced.
Assad: As terrorist forces infiltrated Damascus, I moved to Latakia but with no viable means of leaving the base, Moscow requested evacuation to Russia
The Kremlin said on December 9 that President Vladimir Putin had made the decision to grant Assad asylum in Russia, which deployed its airforce to Syria in 2015 to help him repel rebel forces.
Trump’s trade wars with China already on the cards before he even assumes office
The transition team calls for clawing back whatever funds remain from Biden’s $7.5 billion plan to build charging stations and shifting the money to battery-minerals processing and the “national defence supply chain and critical infrastructure.”
West Africa economic bloc sets up court for crimes during Yahya Jammeh’s regime in Gambia
The court will cover alleged crimes committed under military dictator Yahya Jammeh, whose rule from 1996 to 2017 was marked by arbitrary detention, sexual abuse and extrajudicial killings. Jammeh lost a presidential election in 2016 and went into exile in Equatorial Guinea a year later after initially refusing to step down.
Nuclear: Moscow vows to retaliate as Putin accuses West of pushing Russia to its ‘redlines’
Putin, who said Russian forces in Ukraine has taken control of 189 settlements so far this year, said Russia’s nuclear weapons were there for deterrence.
