Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei defended a 2020 law which prevented a return to the JCPOA nuclear agreement in a meeting with Iranian members of parliament on Sunday. Sunday’s parliamentary session was also attended by President-elect Masoud Pezeskhian, who is seen as a reformist. Although Pezeskhian had announced that he would work more closely with [...]

Russia and Ukraine completed another exchange of prisoners of war (POWs) on Wednesday. The Russian defense ministry confirmed the exchange on Telegram, stating that all prisoners of war will receive adequate medical treatment. In a statement on X, Ukrainian president Volodimir Zelenskyy confirmed the successful exchange, thanking the United Arabian Emirates (UAE) who mediated the [...]

Nicaragua on Tuesday ordered the closure and seizure of assets of Radio Maria, a Catholic radio station run by prominent government critic Bishop Rolando Alvarez. Alvarez was exiled to the Vatican after being released from house arrest on treason charges. The decision by the interior ministry was announced via the government’s official gazette. Taking full [...]

A Russian military court on Monday convicted and sentenced a playwright and a director to 6 years in jail over a play that allegedly justifies terrorism. The judge found director Yevgeniya Berkovich and writer Svetlana Petriychuk, who had been in pre-trial detention since May 2023, guilty under Part 2 of Article 205.2 of the Russian [...]

Spain’s Tribunal Supremo on Monday upheld arrest warrants for Catalonia’s former leader Carles Puigdemont and other Catalan separatists charged with embezzlement, ruling that a recent amnesty law does not relieve them of their penal responsibility. The politicians, currently living in exile, are facing charges connected to the organization of the 2017 Catalan independence referendum, which [...]

A record number of politically motivated crimes occurred in Germany last year, according to a report published by the country’s domestic intelligence agency on Tuesday. The report by the Bundesverfassungsschutz juxtaposes domestic crime statistics of 2023 with monitored data about interior threats, such as suspected extremist groups and movements, and partially connects the increase in [...]

Last Wednesday, the pro-Palestine encampment on a small square in front of a Groningen University (RUG) building in Groningen was cleared by police officers and municipal services. The protesters, who had intended to end the camp in the next few days, left after being warned of a big police presence close by. Now nothing is [...]

A mayor-elect was shot and killed on Monday in the southern Mexcian state of Guerrero, according to a statement by the State Prosecutor’s office. Salvador Villalva Flores, returning from a trip to Mexico City, was traveling on the highway on the bus when he was fatally shot in the town of San Pedro de las [...]

Germany is considering deporting Afghan migrants who endanger public security back to Afghanistan, Interior Minister Nancy Faeser told reporters on Tuesday. Her remarks follow the fatal stabbing of a policeman by a 25-year-old Afghan at an anti-Islam event. The federal prosecutor has now picked up the case on the grounds of a suspected Islamist motive. [...]

Rahel Helmhart contributed to this dispatch.  Tuesday afternoon last week, one couldn’t avoid hearing the chants, claps and drums from the small square right in front of the Harmonie Complex at the University of Groningen (RUG). About 150 protesters, bystanders and a couple of policemen had joined a small encampment of around ten tents set [...]