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Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has been courting China assiduously — learning Mandarin, welcoming officials to Facebook’s offices and asking President Xi Jinping to choose a name for his then unborn child. But, so far, there’s little sign his charm offensive is paying off. Lu Wei, China’s Internet czar, says the country has no plans to stop blocking foreign websites, which ... Read More »

We’re surrounded by shades of deep green, hiking up hill, following the rhythmic sound of machete slicing a small path through thick forest. “We’re two minutes away now,” says Virunga National Park’s southern sector head Innocent Mburanumwe. “Actually maybe one minute,” he corrects himself. Time to put on our masks. Mountain gorillas share 98% of their DNA with humans. Even ... Read More »

More than 900 women are campaigning for public office in Saudi Arabia — a first in the kingdom’s history. The December 12 municipal election will be the first opportunity for Saudi women to vote or run for office since a 2011 order by the now deceased King Abdullah that granted women some opportunities for political participation in the ultra-conservative Sunni ... Read More »

Two new stadium designs have been unveiled for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics after organizers controversiallyscrapped a previous plan. A winner will be chosen later this month, the Japan Sports Council said in a statement. “(The winning design) will be selected by the end of December after further examination by a committee consisting of architectural experts and ministers,” said Council president ... Read More »

A shaken father told reporters Wednesday that he never knew his son had returned to France after a stint in Syria. If he’d found out, Said Mohamed-Aggad said he wouldn’t have let his son join the ranks of attackers who unleashed carnage at the Bataclan theater in Paris last month. “I would have killed him beforehand,” he said in an ... Read More »

A Russian warship has fired warning shots at a Turkish boat as the two vessels threatened to collide. The incident occurred on Sunday 22 kilometers (13 miles) north of the Greek island of Limnos in the Aegean Sea, according to a statement from the Russian Defense Ministry. Relations between Russia and Turkey have been tense since a Russian jet operating ... Read More »

A blast at a bus stop killed 23 people and injured dozens more in northwestern Pakistan on Sunday, authorities said. A Sunni militant group has claimed responsibility. The explosion hit the bus stop at a busy market in Parachinar, the capital of Kurram Agency, said Amjad Ali, a local official. At least 50 others were injured. He said the number ... Read More »

Police in Mumbai are investigating the suspected murder of an artist and her lawyer, whose bodies were found bound and dumped in cardboardcartons over the weekend, officers said Monday. The boxes carrying the bodies of artist Hema Upadhyay and her legal counsel Harish Bhambhani were recovered from a drain on Saturday, said Mumbai’s police spokesman Dhananjay Kulkarni. The victims’ hands ... Read More »

The ringleader of the Paris attacks last month appears to have directed the three terrorists inside the Bataclan theater by phone from a few blocks away, according to a French terrorism expert. And, a witness has told French investigators that they saw Abdelhamid Abaaoud standing in a doorway yelling into his phone for about an hour. That night, the witness ... Read More »

French authorities are questioning three people in connection with terrorist attacks 10 months apart. Two suspects are being held as part of the investigation into January’s deadly siege of a kosher grocery store in the Paris suburb of Vincennes, a representative for French prosecutors told CNN. Separately, a 29-year-old man was arrested Tuesday morning in connection with the series of ... Read More »