Relive the days of Ned Stark, Khal Drogo, and all the other characters that shaped the show into the wildest show on television. With 3,800 minutes of content, you could technically binge-watch the entire show in like three days — just choose free two-day shipping at checkout and make sure to get these episodes in before the season 8 premiere. Read more...
When there is a massive sale on, it's tempting to get bogged down in all the deals and not look elsewhere. That could easily be the case right now, in the wake of all the Amazon Spring Sale deals.
We're not falling into that trap, though. Yes, there are loads of great deals over at Amazon, but if we didn't stay on the lookout then we may have missed the 72-hour sale at Dell.
Thankfully, we maintained focus, and caught this sale before it was too late. You can save 12% on laptops and desktops in the Dell 72-hour sale until April 10, using the code SAVE12. This sale includes Alienware and Inspiron devices, so this could be the perfect time to grab a bargain if you're in the market for these products. Read more...
The Amazon Spring Sale has started with a bang, and as expected, a wide range of Amazon's own devices have been heavily discounted. We'll keep an eye on things and keep you updated with all the latest deals, but if you have been eyeing up an Amazon device for some time, then now is the perfect time to strike.
You can save on the Echo Dot, Echo Plus, Echo, Fire TV Stick, Fire HD Tablet, and so much more. You can also pick up a Kindle Paperwhite for £20 less than the normal list price, which is arguably the best deal of the bunch.
In the Amazon Spring Sale, the waterproof Kindle Paperwhite has been reduced from £119.99 to just £99.99. This is the sort of price that you probably won't see again until Prime Day or Black Friday. If you feel like you might need the bumper 32 GB version, then do not worry because this is also reduced by £20. Read more...
A new spin-off series based in The Walking Dead universe is coming to AMC in 2020.
Hot on the trail of the ninth season of The Walking Dead, AMC announced that a second spin-off will start production this summer and premiere sometime in 2020, IGN reported Monday. The new zombie show got a 10-episode order for its first season with Walking Dead writer Matt Negrete heading it up as a co-creator.
We don't know a whole lot about the new Walking Dead show, but AMC did provide a short description that gives us a hint of what it will look like, saying the series will "feature two young female protagonists and focus on the first generation to come-of-age in the apocalypse as we know it. Some will become heroes. Some will become villains. In the end, all of them will be changed forever. Grown-up and cemented in their identities, both good and bad." Read more...
On Saturday, evil Twitter genius @notsogosling shared an edit of the already creepy video in which Malek says he's a fan of things like his mom, chamomile tea, handwritten letters, classic movies, and looking sharp "regardless of the occasion." If you didn't think it could get creepier, you were wrong.
Inspired by Jordan Peele's horror film, Us, the new black and white recording is mashed with the film's unofficial anthem, Luniz's "I Got 5 on It" for maximum horror. Read more...
You can get a really great deal available on Audible right now, but before we get into that, we're going to give you the details on what exactly you are getting with the service.
Audible has a pretty unmatched selection of the best stories, with the world's largest selection of audiobooks and premium spoken-word entertainment. Whether you're driving, commuting, exercising, or chilling at home, you can transform your everyday by listening to your favourite stories in the Audible app for iPhone, Android, Windows, Kindle Fire, Amazon Echo, and Fire TV.
With an Audible membership you get one credit per month that's valid for any audiobook regardless of price. Members also get free access to short original audio programmes. Every audiobook is yours to keep, even if you cancel, and you get up to 60% off selected audiobooks with member-only deals. Read more...
Most kids who grew up with any sort of balcony probably felt the need to throw something off of it at some point.
In a video uploaded by Forrest Hall to YouTube, we see him chuck stuffed animals attached to homemade miniature parachutes over his home's interior balcony.
Forrest designs and hand crafts his parachutes, and this compilation shows his growth over the years and his eventual graduation from balcony to rooftop for his launches. Forrest also showcases a lot of his parachute creations on his Instagram, the aptly named Balcony Base.
Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's a parachuting teddy bear. Read more...
It's about time we started to take control of our own destiny. Our planet is in big trouble for a whole range of reasons. But there's also many ways we can individually make an effort to turn the tide.
Waste is one of the major problems we are facing globally, and single-use plastic is arguably the biggest culprit. We've all seen the images of plastics polluting the oceans and damaging the habitats of species around the world. It really needs to stop. Read more...
We're only on the first day of the Amazon Spring Sale and there is already so much to get excited about, if deals are your thing.
There's a whole load of great offers on TVs, smartphones, kitchen appliances, and more, with discounts available on the biggest brands. There are also a few very interesting deals for gamers. Specifically, Xbox gamers.
You can now get a download code for a six-month Xbox Game Pass for just £23.99. That's a considerable reduction on the normal price of £42.64. If you bag this deal then you'll receive two stackable codes, and you must redeem each code individually. You get the first three months for £23.99, and then a further three months for free. Read more...
Pretty much everyone likes watching TV, right? It's a great escape from your daily routine and a wonderful way to decompress after a long and tedious day at work. However, sometimes your home life can get in the way of your precious TV time.
You might live in a busy household where people are constantly coming in and out, or playing loudly around you, or are just working on their own activities and hobbies. Simply put, your family just might annoy the hell out of you as you watch episodes of Game of Thrones, or you might equally annoy them with your loud TV watching. Perhaps you just want to enjoy Monday Night Football, while others could care less whether Manchester United win. Is getting a little peace and quiet too much to ask? Read more...
Queen Bey's 2018 Coachella performance rocked more than just the one festival — it streamed live and reverberated around the world. Her set paid glorious homage to the ingenuity and creative spirit of the HBCU community, and Netflix's documentary Homecoming: A Film By Beyoncé promises to go behind the scenes of how the master work of that live performance came together.
Homecoming: A Film By Beyoncé comes to Netflix April 17th.Read more...
It would be the clash of a generation: the Mountain and the Hound, two brothers who've been enemies since they were children, meeting in battle one last time.
Cleganebowl is the name of the fight that Game of Thrones fans have dreamed up, pitting Sandor "The Hound" Clegane vs. Gregor "The Mountain" Clegane in a duel that would likely end in death. The two Cleganes, although similarly fierce warriors, are diametrically opposed and have made it abundantly clear that they would kill each other given the chance.
Let's dig into what exactly makes Cleganbowl such a juicy fight.
Taking your smartphone out regularly to check your messages can be annoying at times, especially when you're taking the subway to work at rush hour. Are you an iPhone user? You're in luck, as you can get this Apple Watch series 3 for $269.00 (listed at $409). With this, you can read all your messages while keeping your phone in your pocket. What makes this deal great is that it's the GPS and cellular model, most places are selling this model for $329, so you're saving $60 off.
Not a day goes by on the internet without someone trying to come up with a new way to outsmart a computer. The Australian friends in the video above found a way to trick the McDonald's self-service machine into giving them 11 free burgers (well, one free burger and 10 pattyless burgers, at least). Don't try this one at home, folks.
The guys talked through what they were doing as they filmed the self-service screen. Here's how they did it...
First, they selected the dollar hamburger option on the menu and requested 10 of them.
"We'll have ten of these and we'll customise them so we don't want a regular beef patty so that takes $1.10 off our order, off our dollar hamburger," said a voice behind the camera. Read more...
If there's one thing John Oliver has really nailed, it's taking a seemingly innocuous topic and showing just how grim the reality behind it can be.
Enter mobile homes. They may not be something you've ever given much thought to, but — as Oliver breaks down in the Last Week Tonight monologue above — there's actually a lot more to this seemingly-affordable housing option than meets the eye.
As is often the case with Oliver's choice of topic, big businesses are the enemy here — and they get well and truly roasted in the parody commercial (starring The Good Place's D'Arcy Carden) that features right at the end. Read more...
It's the first day of Amazon's Spring Sale, and that means one thing — deals.
You can save on a wide variety of products from the leading names in technology. You can pick up heavily reduced Amazon devices, smartphones, TVs, and much more, from the likes of Samsung, Huawei, LG, Toshiba, and Sony Bravia.
We have highlighted a selection of the very best offers, so that you can sit back, relax, and save. These are the best deals from across the sale for April 8.
Best of the best
Take your pick from discounted Amazon devices, Garmin smartwatches, Bosch lawn mowers, and more.
Smartphones
The best smartphone deals from the Amazon Spring sale, including reduced Samsung Galaxy handsets. Read more...
Turning on push notifications can be a very useful and informative thing to do. It can also be a very annoying addition to your existence, rather akin to being prodded by someone whose sole purpose is to inform you of horrifying news from around the world.
But, TV comedy writer James Colley discovered that some push notifications — namely those sent by BBC Science Focus Magazine — are a bit like interacting with a child who has an incessant supply of questions about the world.
"I’ve accidentally set up push notifications for the BBC science magazine and it’s like being followed about by an inquisitive but annoying child," wrote Colley on Twitter. Read more...
At this point we're emotionally prepared to watch nearly every person die in Game of Thrones Season 8. But there's probably a far worse casualty of winter: the dragons. Because even if they somehow survive the Great War to come, there's a high chance they'll need to be killed anyway.
Clearly it was intended to be a laid back, casual attempt to distract from the confusing and deeply nightmarish hellstorm that Britain's attempt to leave the EU has become.
Anyway, you can probably guess what happened next.
Mere hours after May's video was posted, the parodies were rolling in.
This one splices May's speech with the apocalyptic British movie Threads. Read more...
If you hate presentations — making them, giving them — you're not alone. The drawn-out process is akin to drinking a vat of water and then watching all of Avengers: Endgame uninterrupted as your poor bladder dies a slow death.
On the presentation making front, though, something like Powtoon can make the entire experience a lot easier.
Powtoon is what you'd get if Powerpoint could just chill for a sec: lower maintenance, no-fuss, dare we say fun? It’ll help you create pro-quality videos for everything from marketing collateral to company presentations.
If you don’t want to break your iPhone, don’t use counterfeit accessories — so says Apple.
According to Apple, your best bet is to use Lightning accessories made only by Apple, or by certified manufacturers (identifiable by their “Made for Apple” badge).
It sounds like a cash grab ploy straight out of Apple’s brilliant decades-long master plan to take all your money, but there is a lot of truth to it. A lot of shady manufacturers turn out cheaply made accessories that can seriously damage your phone — the downside of swapping quality for a quick bargain.
So, you want to buy a drone, and it turns out you also only have a budget of $200. That’s no problem. The good news is that you have a *ton* of options to choose from — if you simply type “drones under $200” into your Google search bar, you'd find more drones than you can even count. The bad news, however, is that you simply don’t have the time to do all that research, and what’s more is that you can easily buy a piece of crap without even knowing it (and let’s be honest, a lot of them are pieces of crap).
Well, we’re here to combat that bad news with some more good news — we did the research for you, and after scouring through countless reviews and drone blogs, we’ve narrowed it down to eight choices that we think are worth taking a look at. This list is a great representation of the various drones you can find across the spectrum (we tried to find a little bit of everything), including features like first-person view, VR capability, one-key functionality, altitude hold, real-time video streaming, educational programs, and more. Read more...
Samsung's ultrasonic in-display fingerprint scanner can apparently be fooled by using a 3D-printed fingerprint.
If you have the phone owner's fingerprint and access to fairly inexpensive 3D printing equipment, the entire process takes minutes and the resulting fingerprint copy will unlock the phone quite reliably.
Imgur user darkshark explained the process on Imgur (via The Verge). He took a photograph of his fingerprint from the side of a wine glass with his smartphone. He then created a 3D model of the fingerprint with 3DS Max software, and printed it on a piece of resin with the AnyCubic Photon LCD printer. Read more...
At Marvel's Avengers: Endgame press conference held in Los Angeles on Sunday, directors Anthony and Joe Russo joined the MCU cast and a bunch of empty chairs for a little chat.
While the cast were forbidden from revealing too much about the Endgame plot, there was one long-raging debate that got its time on the floor: Captain America's beard. Read more...
The UK is set to unveil new measures against the spread of harmful and violent content on the internet.
The Online Harms white paper, set to be released on Monday morning by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, introduces a new independent regulator for social media companies, file hosting sites, and other companies which host content.
These companies will be required to ensure that they restrict the spread of harmful content on their platforms, and to abide by a mandatory "duty of care" statute. Read more...
Warning: This story contains spoilers for Avengers: Infinity War.
Sometimes a press conference is just a press conference. But it's not often a memorial that punches you right in the heart.
On Sunday, Marvel's Avengers: Endgame press conference held in Los Angeles reminded us of exactly how many of our MCU comrades have fallen, by leaving chairs empty among the stars.
Endgame directors Anthony and Joe Russo, alongside stars Brie Larson, Chris Evans and Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson, Robert Downey Jr., Mark Ruffalo, Don Cheadle, and more took to their designated spots on stage. Read more...
Imagine a high-action buddy cop situation that kicks off during your next Uber ride.
Comedian Kumail Nanjiani and Guardians of the Galaxy star Dave Bautista have teamed up for exactly that in 20th Century Fox's new action comedy, Stuber.
The film follows the exploits of an Uber driver (yep, named Stu) just going about his day, when he's suddenly pulled into a hot criminal pursuit with a suddenly on-the-case- LAPD passenger.
Looks like a pretty strong support cast too, with Parks and Recreation's Natalie Morales, GLOW's Betty Bilpin, Mile 22's Iko Uwais, and the Oscar winner Mira Sorvino. Read more...
On Friday Netflix released Our Planet, the newest David Attenborough nature documentary from the people who brought you Planet Earth 1 and 2.
It's stunning. More than any other nature doc of its ilk, Our Planet also makes a point of reminding viewers how interconnected we are. We share this planet, and all rely on a healthy Earth to stay alive. We may be seeing the worst effects of climate change happening to non-human animals right now, but it's only a matter of time for the rest of us.
But the truly incredible feat of this documentary is just how relatable it makes every animal. In just the first six episodes, there's an abundance of #BigMoods to be found in their shenanigans. Read more...
For anyone who's been paying attention to the social media discourse around video games in recent days, you've probably noticed a couple of frequently repeated buzzwords.
There's "difficulty" and "accessibility," and lots of discussion around the tension between those two concepts. There's also "Sekiro" and "FromSoft," a reference to the newly released game Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice from Dark Souls and Bloodborne developer From Software.
I'll be the first one to admit that the discourse around video games online can sometimes come across as unapproachable to a wider audience. But I also think this particular example is well worth taking the time to understand, so let's dive in. Read more...
Demonstrators gather outside army HQ in the capital for second straight day in bid to precipitate president's removal.
Thousands of protesters have rallied for a second successive day outside the headquarters of the Sudanese army in the capital, Khartoum, urging the country's military to back their demands for President Omar al-Bashir to resign.
Chanting "Sudan is rising, the army is rising," crowds massed on Sunday outside the complex, which also houses al-Bashir's official residence and the defence ministry.
WASHINGTON — In case you missed it, Bernie Sanders is now, for all practical purposes, the front-runner in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination.
The Vermont socialist pulled in $18 million in the first three months of 2019, most of it from small donors. His nearest rival, Kamala Harris, collected $12 million, with others far behind.
Sanders' campaign is off to a strong start by other measures, too. He says he has signed up more than 1 million volunteers for (in his words) "a grassroots effort the likes of which has never been seen." He's staged rallies from coast to coast, drawing crowds of 10,000 or more.
WNU Editor: It is hard to believe that Democrats may choose a 77 year old socialist to be their Presidential candidate for 2020, but he is the front runner right now, and his supporters are very committed.
Ukrainian law enforcement officials believe they have evidence of wrongdoing by American Democrats and their allies in Kiev, ranging from 2016 election interference to obstructing criminal probes. But, they say, they've been thwarted in trying to get the Trump Justice Department to act.
Kostiantyn Kulyk, deputy head of the Prosecutor General's International Legal Cooperation Department, told me he and other senior law enforcement officials tried unsuccessfully since last year to get visas from the U.S. embassy in Kiev to deliver their evidence to Washington.
That old line about drinking like a sailor isn't bullshit.
To probably no one's surprise, U.S. service members drink more days out of the year than any other industry, according to data collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) from 2013 through 2017 and analyzed by the Delphi Health Group.
According to the survey of 27,000 people across 25 industries, the average American warfighter spent 130 total days drinking in the last year, well above the average of 91 across more than any of the other 24 industries, including mining, construction, finance, and education.
* Under President Donald Trump, the US has reemphasized great-power competition, shifting focus to rivalries with Russia and China. * In what may be the latest sign of that shift, the Trump administration is reportedly considering moving diplomatic personal out of Iraq and Afghanistan, where Washington has focused for much of the past 20 years.
President Donald Trump's administration is considering reducing its diplomatic footprint in Afghanistan as part of a broader effort to extricate the United States from its costly and deadly 18-year conflict, US officials tell Foreign Policy.
The State Department is preparing to cut by half the number of US diplomats posted in Kabul in 2020, according to three US officials familiar with internal deliberations. It may also advance plans to reduce the number of diplomats posted to the US Embassy in Iraq as Washington winds down its war footing in the Middle East and South Asia to prepare for what it calls an era of "great-power competition" with China and Russia.
WNU Editor: If this happens it will signal to everyone that the U.S. is shifting away from Iraq and Afghanistan .... which is not surprising since President Trump has been talking about doing this for the past three years.
(Warning: graphic content) Rwandan refugees cross the Rusumo border to Tanzania from Rwanda carrying their belongings, goats, mattresses and cows, May 30, 1994. The bloodshed that claimed 800,000 Tutsi and moderate Hutu lives began 25 years ago on April 7, 1994, when a plane carrying Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana, Burundi President Cyprien Ntaryamira and a French air crew was shot down. REUTERS/Jeremiah Kamau
Eastern European leaders face accusations of corruption and links to organised crime
It all started with a video posted on social media: a secret recording from 2016 that appears to show a well-known local tycoon hand over an envelope containing bundles of cash to a party associate of Montenegro's long-standing leader.
The prominent businessman, a former close friend and confidant of Montenegrin president Milo Djukanovic, released the video late last year in retaliation for charges filed against him for fraud and money laundering, which have prompted him to flee to London to avoid prosecution.
The tycoon, Dusko Knezevic, also gradually released a series of documents accusing the president and his ruling party of corruption, cronyism and abuse of office, claiming he has cashed-in millions of dollars to Mr Djukanovic and his ruling party so the authorities turn a blind eye to his shady business dealings.
Protesters from the Yellow Vest movement took to the streets of France for a 21st straight weekend, with hundreds gathered for a march across Paris, one of numerous protests around the country.
Maldives President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih's political party looks to have scored a landslide victory in parliamentary elections Sunday.
According to state media, initial results show Solih's Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) has won 67 out of 87 seats in parliament, an historic margin that will strengthen his mandate to investigate the former government's ties to China.
"Today is a happy day," Solih said in a statement late Sunday. "Without exception, the biggest winners of today's elections are the Maldivian people. To have this election across the country under peaceful and civil conditions is a clear win for us as a society. That our campaign was issue-oriented and not based on hatred and narrow divisions is a win for our young democracy. That our government did not hinder those candidates with whom we did not agree is a big win for the country."
* Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen met with President Donald Trump Sunday evening and submitted her resignation * 'Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen will be leaving her position, and I would like to thank her for her service,' Trump tweeted on Sunday * Her tenure at Homeland has been marked by an up-and-down relationship with the president, who railed against the immigration problem at the border * Nielsen was reported to be frustrated with the White House blind siding her when it dropped Ron Vitiello to lead U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement * That and the pressure of the ongoing immigration crisis prompted her to resign * Trump was also frustrated by the inability of the department to close the border and to change asylum laws to prevent immigrants from claiming that status * 'Frustrations were building on both sides,' a source told Axios * Nielsen survived 15 months despite reports Trump was planning to fire her * Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAleenan will be acting secretary
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen submitted her resignation to President Donald Trump on Sunday evening after months of threats from the president to fire her amid his growing frustration over border security.
'Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen will be leaving her position, and I would like to thank her for her service,' Trump tweeted on Sunday evening.
He announced U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAleenan will be acting secretary.
The Canadian embassy is often on the frontline of violent street protests. Here, anti-Maduro protesters carrying molotov cocktails use a truck to deliver material for a street barricade in June 2017. The five-storey beige building behind them is the Canadian embassy. (Ivan Alvarado/Reuters)
'There's a reason that the U.S. sometimes acts ... like it's blind and deaf' - former ambassador Ben Rowswell
The United States signed an accord yesterday that will allow for a U.S. "interests section" in the Swiss embassy in Caracas, the same arrangement it has had in Tehran for the past 40 years.
The U.S. began pulling its diplomats from its embassy in Venezuela in January and the last left in mid-March.
The Canadians, however, remain entrenched in their five-storey embassy on the corner of Altamira Square, with no plans to go anywhere.
The newsprint shortages which forced Cuba's Communist daily to run a trimmed-down edition on Friday would pass off as a simple supply glitch in most other countries, but in Havana they carry chilling memories of the not-so-distant past.
The last time the government cut back on newspapers because of a lack of newsprint was in the early 1990s, when Fidel Castro ushered in a "Special Period" of drastic belt-tightening in the wake of the collapse of his main sponsor, the Soviet Union.
Today, the Caribbean state is facing difficulties once again, with US President Donald Trump -- who has lashed out at Cuba for its support of Venezuela's socialist regime -- determined to tighten Washington's six-decade trade embargo.
The Russian navy might decommission its only aircraft without directly replacing the vessel, leaving Moscow's fleet without any prospect of at-sea air cover for the first time in decades.
The Russian navy might decommission its only aircraft without directly replacing the vessel, leaving Moscow's fleet without any prospect of at-sea air cover for the first time in decades.
Admiral Kuznetsov, the Russian navy's sole flattop, in October 2018 suffered serious damage at the 82nd Repair Shipyard in Roslyakovo, a northern port city, when the PD-50 dry-dock sank while Kuznetsov was aboard for repairs.
Dry-docks lift ships out of the water, allowing workers to access their lower hulls for deep maintenance.
Swedish-built PD-50 was the only large dry-dock capable of supporting the Russian northern fleet's largest warships. Russia's other large dry-docks are thousands of miles from the fleet's main northern bases.
WNU Editor: The trend in the Russian navy is to build small and heavily armed ships. The aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov just does not not fit in their plans anymore.
PM's lawyer sent letter to Opposition leader about remarks made concerning the SNC-Lavalin matter
Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer has received a lawsuit threat from the prime minister regarding comments he made about the SNC-Lavalin affair.
Scheer says he received a letter from Justin Trudeau's lawyer on March 31.
The letter from Trudeau's lawyer Julian Porter took issue with what they term inappropriate comments in a statement made by Scheer on March 29 in response to new documents tabled in the justice committee from former attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould.
* China is spying on millions of Uighurs, a Muslim-majority ethnic minority, and detaining at least a million of them. * Beijing has gone above and beyond to prevent Muslim countries from standing up for the Uighurs — and the strategy is working. * Over the past few months many countries in the Islamic world have criticized China, then abruptly rowed back their comments. * Experts say this is a result of Chinese threats against the countries if they do speak up.
China is waging a global campaign against the Uighurs, a majority-Muslim ethnic minority concentrated in its western frontier of Xinjiang.
In the last two years the country has ordered tech companies to spy on their phones, outlawed Muslim practices like wearing a beard or going to prayers, and detained at least one million of them in prison-like detention centers.
Activists and politicians in places like the US and UN regularly slam China over the crackdown. Beijing continually tells its Western critics to back off, but goes above and beyond to prevent Muslim countries from standing up for Uighurs.
WNU Editor: It all comes down to money. China buys Saudi oil. Pakistan has tens of billions in Chinese loans and investments. Syria is hoping for aid from Beijing. Etc. etc. etc.
Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks with Chinese President Xi Jinping during their meeting on the sidelines of the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, Russia September 11, 2018. Mikhail Metzel/TASS Host Photo Agency/Pool via REUTERS
In March of 1969, Chinese troops ambushed and killed a Soviet border patrol on an island near the Chinese-Russian border. Fighting on and near the island lasted for months and ended with hundreds of casualties. Fifty years later, the ferocity of the skirmish between Mao Zedong's China and Leonid Brezhnev's Soviet Union seems to belong to a very distant past—so distant, indeed, that many foreign-policy experts are convinced that an anti-U.S. alliance between the two countries is emerging. Yet even half a century on, such an assessment stretches the evidence beyond what it can bear. On closer inspection, Chinese-Russian economic, foreign policy, and military cooperation is less than impressive. The history of relations between the two countries is fraught, and they play vastly different roles in the world economy, making a divergence in their objectives all but unavoidable. In short, reports of a Russian-Chinese alliance have been greatly exaggerated.
WNU Editor: China is focused on getting energy products, minerals, and military technology from Russia while selling to Russia finished goods. Russia is focused on exporting its energy resources and selling military hardware to China. As to cooperating on geopolitical issues, it is limited to individual cases lie Syria, Venezuela, etc..
Footage of U.S Africa command personnel being evacuated from Libya to a U.S navy ship in the Mediterranean this morning #Libya#Tripolipic.twitter.com/BsuMo9PbPC
As Khalifa Haftar's militia pushes deeper into Tripoli, Americans in the capital to help the UN-backed government are being whisked to safety.
actions of the Libyan National Army (LNA), led by hardline General Khalifa Haftar, have made a thrust into Tripoli and have claimed to have taken control of Tripoli International Airport, which hasn't been anywhere near fully functional since 2014. The UN-backed Libyan government calls Tripoli home, whereas Haftar has amassed his power largely in the eastern and southern stretches of Libya. Last week, Haftar—who enjoys varying degrees support from the UAE, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Russia—ordered his militias to take the Libyan Government's seat of power in what could be a far more decisive military operation than most expected it to be.
Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has warned Iraq about the "detrimental" effects of having U.S. forces on its territory and urged its neighbor to get the troops to leave as soon as possible.
In a series of tweets after meeting with visiting Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi in Tehran on April 6, the Iranian leader questioned the motives of the United States, saying it opposes Iraq's "current democratic setting."
"U.S. military presence in Iraq is detrimental to countries and nations of the region. You should take actions to make the U.S. withdraw its troops from Iraq because wherever they have had enduring presence, forcing them out has become problematic," he said in the first of five tweets.
Members of the Iranian revolutionary guard march during a parade to commemorate the anniversary of the Iran-Iraq war (1980-88), in Tehran September 22, 2011. REUTERS/Stringer
Top White House officials endorse designation as senior military officials caution against it.
The United States will designate Iran's Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist organisation, an unprecedented move that will ramp up pressure on the elite force, The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.
The newspaper, citing unidentified officials, said President Donald Trump's administration will announce the decision as soon as Monday and that concerned defence officials were bracing for the impact.
The officials told the WSJ that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and White House National Security Adviser John Bolton, who have repeatedly railed against Iran, are strong proponents of the designation.
WNU Editor: The similarities of today's Western culture to the culture of the Soviet Union (and I have lived in both) strikes me with each passing day. Political correctness. Fake news. And yes .... even saying a poorly thought of joke or comment without appreciating the consequences. The above video is a classic.
Does North Korea Have Any Chance of Killing an F-35?
The ROKAF, South Korea's Air Force received their first F-35A fighter jets in April 2019. The ROKAF hopes to eventually buy forty F-35As and should have ten F-35As by the end of the year.
But how do these aircraft fit into the ROKAF's existing fleet of aircraft? What role could they play in countering the North Korean KPAF?
The ROKAF already fields a variety of advanced American fighters, including over one hundred KF-16Cs and around 60 F-15K Slam Eagles. The KF-16C is fully integrated with the American AMRAAM air-to-air missile, which the ROKAF fields in the AIM-120C-5 and AIM-120C-7 variants.
THE DEPTHS of the depraved evil carried out by militia in Rwanda have few parallels in history. The sheer horror of the methods used to kill innocent men women and children defy belief.
TURKEY has condemned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as "irresponsible" after he pledged to annex Jewish settlements in the disputed West Bank territory.
DONALD Trump has snubbed China's Navy 70th anniversary celebrations, rejecting the country's invitation to send warships or senior military officers to make the occasion.
Moon Jae-in plans to ask the U.S. to ease sanctions on North Korea when he meets President Donald Trump at the White House this week, say unnamed South Korean officials cited by the KoreanTimes.
The South Korean president is visiting Washington D.C. for a summit on North Korean nuclear diplomacy, where the two leaders are expected to discuss how to achieve the denuclearization of the north and peace on the Korean Peninsula.
“Moon plans to embrace the risk of personal diplomacy by asking Trump to grant reciprocal measures after Seoul and Washington laid out the necessary groundwork via working-level discussions,” a South Korean official told the Korea Times.
Although it remains to be seen which sanctions Moon might ask the U.S. to revoke first, officials said he is likely to focus on those that impact the country’s citizens.
“It’s likely President Moon may raise the lessening of sanctions that affect the lives of the North Korean people,” an official said, according to the Korea Times.
Moon, who made TIME’s shortlist for person of the year in 2018, has played an active role in peace talks with Seoul’s northern neighbor.
U.S. diplomacy efforts with North Korea have stalled since Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jung Un’s second summit in Hanoi in February ended abruptly with no deal.
Trump said he walked away from talks because North Korea asked for the removal of all sanctions before Pyongyang agreed to full denuclearization, but North Korean officials later disputed the claim, and said that they had only asked for the U.S. to move on restrictions related to its civilian economy.
In mid-March, just a few weeks after the failed summit, Kim said that he was considering ending nuclear talks with the U.S. and resuming nuclear and missile testing.
A British woman has been detained in Dubai for allegedly insulting her ex-husband’s wife in Facebook comments made almost three years ago, the BBC reports.
Laleh Shahravesh, 55, is facing up to two years in jail and a fine of more than $65,000 under the United Arab Emirates’ draconian online defamation laws, even though she only lived in Dubai for 8 months and was no longer living there when she purportedly wrote the comments.
She was arrested when she and her 14-year-old daughter visited Dubai to attend the funeral of her ex-husband, the BBC says.
According to campaign group Detained in Dubai, authorities acted after the new wife complained about the comments made on Facebook in 2016. Shahravesh had apparently posted that her ex-husband, to whom she had been married to for 18 years, would “go under the ground” and that his new wife was a “horse.”
Shahravesh made the Facebook posts while living in the U.K.
Radha Stirling, the CEO of Detained In Dubai, told the BBC that Shahravesh was “absolutely distraught” and that her daughter was going through “what you would call hell.”
Shahravesh is due in court on Apr. 11, according to the campaign group. Foreign Office officials in the U.K. have told the BBC that they are in touch with authorities in Dubai over her case.
(JOHANNESBURG) — The migration of Africans to Europe and North America should be viewed as a positive phenomenon, not a threat, Sudan-born billionaire Mo Ibrahim said Sunday.
Experts said at a weekend conference hosted by Ibrahim’s foundation in Abidjan, Ivory Coast that Africans make up about 14% of the global migrant population, a much smaller share than the 41% from Asia and 23% from Europe.
“Migration is healthy. It’s not a disease,” Ibrahim told the Associated Press in an interview. “Migration is about aspirations, not desperation. People who migrate are mostly capable, ambitious young people who are migrating to work and to build successful lives. They add wealth to the countries they go to.”
Ibrahim also cited statistics to rebut anti-migration politicians who say Africans have inundated Europe.
“Europe is not being flooded by Africans,” Ibrahim said, citing statistics that show 70% of African migrants relocate within Africa.
The 72-year-old philanthropist earned his fortune by establishing the Celtel mobile phone network across Africa.
Now living in Britain, he says African countries should have better education and employment opportunities for their young.
“Farming should be sexy. It should be seen as profitable and productive, not a backward thing,” said Ibrahim. “Yes, IT and technology are important, but agriculture is a way of the future for Africa.”
Ibrahim’s foundation publishes an annual index and awards a leadership prize to encourage good governance in Africa.
(WASHINGTON) — The Trump administration is preparing to designate Iran’s Revolutionary Guard a “foreign terrorist organization,” an unprecedented move against a national armed force that could have widespread implications for U.S. personnel and policy in the Middle East and elsewhere.
Officials informed of the step said an announcement could come as early as Monday, after a monthslong escalation in the administration’s rhetoric against Iran, its support for militia groups in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen, as well as anti-Israel groups in the region and beyond.
It would be the first such designation by any American administration of an entire foreign government entity, although portions of the Guard, notably its elite Quds Force, have been targeted previously by the United States.
Two U.S. officials and a congressional aide confirmed the planned move. They were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
The designation, planning for which was first reported by the Wall Street Journal, comes with sanctions, including freezes on assets the Guard may have in U.S. jurisdictions and a ban on Americans doing business with it or providing material support for its activities.
Although the Guard has broad control and influence over the Iranian economy, such penalties from the U.S. may have limited impact. The designation, however, could significantly complicate U.S. military and diplomatic work, notably in Iraq, where many Shiite militias and Iraqi political parties have close ties to the Guard.
In Lebanon, the designation could further restrict with whom U.S. officials can interact. The Guard has close ties to Hezbollah, which is part of the Lebanese government. Hezbollah is already designated a foreign terrorist organization by the U.S. Its presence in Lebanon’s parliament and executive branch have forced the U.S. to avoid any contact with Hezbollah members even as the U.S. continues to provide assistance to and works with the Lebanese army.
Without exclusions or waivers to the designation, U.S. troops and diplomats could be barred from contact with Iraqi or Lebanese authorities who interact with Guard officials or surrogates.
The Pentagon and U.S. intelligence agencies have raised concerns about the impact of the designation if the move does not allow contact with foreign officials who may have met with or communicated with Guard personnel. Those concerns have in part dissuaded previous administrations from taking the step, which has been considered for more than a decade.
It was not immediately clear whether the designation would include such carve-outs.
In addition to those complications, American commanders are concerned that the designation may prompt Iran to retaliate against U.S. forces in the region, and those commanders plan to warn U.S. troops remaining in Iraq, Syria and elsewhere of that possibility, according to a third U.S. official. This official was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Aside from Iraq, where some 5,200 American troops are stationed, and Syria, where some U.S. 2,000 troops remain, the U.S. 5th Fleet, which operates in the Persian Gulf from its base in Bahrain, and the Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, are potentially at risk.
A similar warning is also expected from the State Department of possible Iranian retaliation against American interests, including embassies and consulates, and anti-American protests, the first two U.S. officials said. Similar alerts were issued at the start of the Iraq War in 2003 and more recently when the Trump administration announced it would recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
Despite the risks, Iran hard-liners on Capitol Hill, such as Sens. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., and Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and elsewhere have long advocated for the designation. They say it will send an important message to Iran as well as deal it a further blow after the Trump pulled out of the 2015 nuclear deal and reimposed economic sanctions.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and national security adviser John Bolton have taken up the call and have in recent months spoken stridently about Iran and its “malign activities” in the region.
Pompeo has made clear in public comments that pressure on Tehran will only increase until it changes its behavior. Just last week, Pompeo’s special representative for Iran, Brian Hook, accused Iran and its proxies of being responsible for the death of 608 U.S. troops in Iraq between 2003 and 2011. He cited newly declassified Defense Department information for the claim, which is expected to be used in the justification for the Guard designation.
“Secretary Pompeo will continue to use all the tools at our disposal to press the regime to change its destructive policies for the benefit of peace in the region and for the sake of its own people, who are the longest-suffering victims of this regime,” Hook said, in an indication that new action is coming.
The department currently designates 60 groups, such as al-Qaida and the Islamic State and their various affiliates, Hezbollah and numerous militant Palestinian factions, as “foreign terrorist organizations.” But none of them is a state-run military.
Once a designation is announced by the secretary of state in coordination with the Treasury secretary, Congress has seven days to review it. If there are no objections, it then will take effect.
A suspected poacher met a violent death in South Africa last week, killed by an elephant before his body was eaten by a pride of lions in Kruger National Park.
According to park officials, the deceased man’s alleged accomplices called his family to tell them that he had been killed by an elephant while they were in the park to hunt rhinos on the night of April 2. The family then contacted park rangers, who organized a search party.
The rangers failed to find the body on the first day of the search. But following the arrest of four alleged accomplices on April 3, the rangers resumed their efforts with additional information provided to them by the suspected poachers.
On April 4, the search party recovered what was left of the alleged poacher. It appeared that a pride of lions had found the body. Only a human skull and a pair of pants were found.
The four arrested men remain in police custody and are awaiting trial, according to a park statement.
Poachers continue to threaten South Africa’s rhino population, though significant gains have been made in recent years. Incidents of rhino poaching have declined for the third-straight year thanks in part to a new environmental initiative according to a statement from the South Africa Department of Environmental Affairs.
“Entering Kruger National Park illegally and on foot is not wise, it holds many dangers and this incident is evidence of that,” said Glenn Phillips, managing executive of the Kruger National Park, in the statement. “It is very sad to see the daughters of the diseased mourning the loss of their father, and worse still, only being able to recover very little of his remains.”
(KAMPALA, Uganda) — Ugandan police said on Sunday they had rescued an American woman and her driver who had been kidnapped by gunmen in a national park.
The two “are in good health” and “in the safe hands” of security officials, police said in a Twitter update.
Police & its sister security agencies have today rescued Ms.Kimberley Sue, an American tourist together with her guide who were kidnapped while on an evening game drive at Queen Elizabeth National park.The duo are in good health & in the safe hands of the joint security team.
Ugandan security teams had been hunting down gunmen who had demanded a $500,000 ransom after kidnapping the American, Kim Endicott, and her Ugandan guide in a national park popular with tourists.
They were ambushed on April 2 in Queen Elizabeth National Park, a protected area near the porous border with Congo, according to Ugandan authorities.
It remains unclear if a ransom was paid in the case of Endicott, who is from Costa Mesa, California, where she has a small skin care shop.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had said at a Tuesday event for families of U.S. citizens held captive overseas that he understands some people want to do anything to get their loved ones back but paying ransom would just lead to more kidnappings.
In a Friday statement the State Department said that the safety and security of U.S. citizens abroad is its highest priority.
“Whenever a U.S. citizen is taken captive abroad, we work tirelessly – in partnership with local authorities – to secure their release and get them home safely,” the statement said.
(LONDON) — Cross-party talks to jumpstart plans for Brexit are expected to resume before the U.K.’s Friday deadline for leaving the European Union, and the opposition Labour Party is hopeful the country’s political impasse can be resolved, a party negotiator said Sunday.
British Prime Minister Theresa May reluctantly reached out to Labour lawmakers Tuesday after Parliament voted down her divorce deal with the EU for the third time. The move infuriated pro-Brexit lawmakers in her Conservative Party, and three days of bargaining with the opposition didn’t yield a compromise agreement.
While Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn faulted the government, saying it showed no willingness to budge from its previous Brexit positions, Labour business minister Rebecca Long-Bailey held out hope and said further talks are expected.
The discussions’ “overall mood is quite a positive and hopeful one” despite the government’s “disappointing” failure to shift its stance on several issues, she said.
“The sad thing is at the moment, we haven’t seen overall any real changes to the deal, but we are hopeful that will change in coming days, and we are willing to continue the talks as we know the government are,” Long-Bailey told the BBC.
“We are currently waiting for the government to come back to us now to state whether they are prepared to move on any of their red lines,” she added.
May acknowledged Saturday that the government had failed to get the withdrawal deal she struck with the EU through Parliament despite her best efforts and “there is no sign it can be passed in the near future.”
That left her with no choice but to reach out to the opposition, the prime minister said. May warned that any Brexit could “slip through our fingers” unless a cross-party compromise was found.
Labour’s key demand is for a customs union with the EU post-Brexit to protect the flow of goods. Hard-line Brexiteers vehemently oppose any proposal that would continue to bind the U.K. to EU tariff rules and restrict Britain’s ability to strike its own free trade deals around the world.
Long-Bailey insisted that Labour wants to avoid a no-deal Brexit “in any situation” and was prepared to cancel Brexit rather than see Britain crash out of the EU with no agreement in place, an outcome expected to wreak havoc on businesses and disrupt travel throughout Europe.
But Conservative lawmaker Andrea Leadsom said Sunday a no-deal scenario wouldn’t be “nearly as grim as many would advocate.” She said the governing party was working “through gritted teeth” with Labour to find a compromise, but its bottom line is Britain leaving the EU.
The bloc agreed last month to postpone Brexit day, originally set for March 29, and set April 12 as the new deadline under certain conditions.
Britain has until Friday to approve the existing withdrawal agreement, to change course and seek a further delay to Brexit, or to crash out of the EU without an agreement.
May has asked the remaining EU countries for another postponement that would extend to June 30, hoping to secure an alternative deal from the opposition negotiations and Parliament in a matter of weeks.
Other European leaders are expected to respond to the delay request during a summit in Brussels scheduled for Wednesday.
(HELSINKI) — Danish police say a 20-year-old man has died and at least four people have been injured in an outbreak of gunfire north of Copenhagen in what appears to be a clash between criminal gangs.
Police said the shootings in the suburban neighborhood of Rungsted late Saturday have led to the arrest of 14 people after raids in several areas.
Spokesman Lau Thygssen of the Copenhagen regional police told Danish broadcaster TV2 that those involved in the gunfire were “younger men aged about 20-27 years and we think they have gang relations.”
The injured were rushed to a hospital. Police are investigating the deadly clash.
(KIGALI, Rwanda) — Twenty-five years after the start of its genocide, in which some 800,000 people were killed, Rwanda is rebuilding with hope and shines with a new light, said President Paul Kagame.
Speaking at commemoration services Sunday, Kagame said that Rwandans would never turn against each other again.
“Our bodies and minds bear amputations and scars, but none of us is alone,” said Kagame at the ceremony attended by several heads of state. “We Rwandans have granted ourselves a new beginning. We exist in a state of permanent commemoration, every day, in all that we do … Today, light radiates from this place.”
Earlier in the day, Kagame and his wife laid wreaths and lit a flame at the mass burial ground of 250,000 victims at the Kigali Genocide Memorial Center in the capital, Kigali.
Those attending the ceremonies included the leaders of Chad, Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, Niger, Belgium, Canada, Ethiopia, as well as the African Union and the European Union.
“I am moved beyond words at this memorial to tragedy,” said Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European Commission. “Time can never erase the darkest hours in our history. It is our duty to remember.”
Songs, poems and plays about the rebirth of Rwanda after the genocide the new nation were later performed at the Kigali convention center.
Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel said “the duty of remembrance must be a sacred requirement.” Belgian peacekeepers were among those killed in Rwanda during the genocide.
Ethiopian Prime Minister expressed solidarity with Rwandans and said under Kagame’s leadership, seeds of unity and never again had been sowed.
There will be a procession through the capital to Kigali’s National Stadium where are many as 30,000 are expected to participate in an evening candlelight ceremony.
“Twenty-five years ago, Rwanda fell into a deep ditch due to bad leadership, today, we are a country of hope and a nation elevated,” Agnes Mutamba, 25, a teacher who was born during the genocide told The Associated Press in Kigali.
“Today, the government has united all Rwandans as one people with the same culture and history and is speeding up economic transformation,” said Oliver Nduhungihere, Rwanda’s state foreign affairs minister.
The mass killing of Rwanda’s Tutsi minority was ignited on April 6, 1994, when a plane carrying President Juvénal Habyarimana was shot down and crashed in Kigali, killing the leader who, like the majority of Rwandans, was an ethnic Hutu.
The Tutsi minority was blamed for downing the plane and the bands of Hutu extremists began slaughtering the Tutsi, with support from the army, police, and militias.
Kagame’s government has previously accused Hutu-led government of 1994 of being responsible for shooting down the plane and has blamed the French government for turning a blind eye to the genocide.
On Friday, French President Emmanuel Macron ordered a government study into the country’s role in Rwanda before and during its 1994 genocide. Macron ordered a commission of researchers and historians to investigate the “role and involvement of France” in Rwanda from 1990-1994. It is to make conclusions within two years.
Kagame has won praise for ending that violence and making advances in economic development and health care. Ethnic reconciliation is a cornerstone of the rule of Kagame, Rwanda’s de facto leader since the genocide ended in 1994 and the country’s president since 2000. He is credited with bringing Rwanda stability, economic growth, and improved health and education.
However, Kagame’s critics charge that he is intolerant of criticism and his government is repressive, jailing opposition leaders.
A quarter-century after the genocide, bodies of victims are still being found. Last year, authorities in Rwanda found discovered mass graves they said contain 5,400 bodies of genocide victims.
“Twenty-five years on, the victims and survivors should remain the center of everyone’s thoughts, but we should also take stock of progress and the need to ensure accountability for all those who directed these horrific acts,” Human Rights Watch said.
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