Articles Tagged with Special Administrative Region

Turkish police detained 357 people on Tuesday in large-scale, coordinated operations targeting the Islamic State group, according to the country’s interior minister, Ali Yerlikaya. Authorities carried out raids across 21 provinces following a deadly clash between police and ISIS militants in Yalova, a small northwestern city, amid heightened security ahead of New Year’s celebrations. Yerlikaya [...]

The Munich II Public Prosecutor’s Office on Tuesday dropped a money laundering and sanction breach investigation into the Russian oligarch Alisher Usmanov, after agreeing upon a €10 million settlement. The settlement will be split between the state treasury (€8.5 million) and German charities (€1.5 million.) Usmanov was accused of failing to declare his assets within [...]

The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) held an emergency meeting on Monday to discuss Israel’s announced recognition of Somaliland, a self-declared independent region of Somalia. The move drew widespread condemnation from world leaders over the weekend, and the UNSC session provided a forum for all member states to present their positions. Somalia opened the discussion, [...]

The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) announced on Monday that it has opened a formal investigation into potential corruption in the country’s military procurement contracts. MACC Chief Commissioner Tan Sri Azam Baki announced that the investigation was launched under Section 17(a) of the MACC Act of 2009, following a complaint filed by political activist Badrul Hisham Shaharin. [...]

FBI Director Kash Patel announced Sunday that the agency will send a large number of investigators and resources to Minnesota to continue investigating a multi-million dollar fraud scheme that is said to have involved theft of federal food aid from children during the COVID-19 pandemic. According to Patel, the investigation has so far …exposed sham [...]

China’s military deployed Army, Navy, Air Force and Rocket Force troops to conduct joint drills around Taiwan on Monday as a “stern warning” against Taiwanese independence. In response, Taiwan placed its forces on “high alert,” condemning China’s “irrational provocations” and asserting that the actions “undermine regional peace.” The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) drills tested the [...]

A Brazilian Supreme Court judge on Saturday sentenced 10 individuals to house arrest for plotting to keep former president Jair Bolsonaro in power following his defeat in the 2022 election. The decision, issued by Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, came shortly after Paraguayan authorities arrested a former senior police official linked to the case. [...]

Italian authorities on Saturday arrested nine individuals on suspicion of raising more than €7 million for Hamas by misrepresenting the funds as humanitarian aid for Palestinians in Gaza. The arrests follow a counter-terrorism and financial crimes investigation jointly conducted by Italy’s anti-terror police and the Guardia di Finanza, launched shortly after the Hamas attacks in [...]

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian stated Saturday that his country is engaged in a “full-fledged war” with the US, Israel and Europe, describing the multifaceted pressures on Iran as “far more complex and difficult” than the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war. The remark appeared in an interview published on the official website of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. [...]

A group of 21 Arab, African and Islamic nations on Saturday issued a joint statement formally rejecting Israel’s recognition of Somaliland as an independent state. The statement asserted that recognizing Somaliland as a nation independent of Somalia constitutes a grave violation of international law, emphasizing the “serious repercussions of such unprecedented measure on peace and [...]