Features

• June 08, 2025

  Fertile Land And Clean Air At Risk: Chinese Mining Alarms Villagers In Serbia And Tajikistan

  Living next to the Chinese-owned Zijin mines, villagers near Bor in eastern Serbia and Panjakent in western Tajikistan face the same threat: poisoned air, degraded farmland, and no recourse. At the same time their governments deepen ties with Beijing.

• June 06, 2025

  More War, Less Money: What A Cut In Signing Bonuses May Reveal About Russia's Fight In Ukraine

  Russia has kept up the flow of men to fight in Ukraine by paying extraordinarily high wages and bonuses. Now some regions are dropping their payments. Experts aren’t sure exactly why, but worsening economic conditions.

• June 06, 2025

  Iran Prepares Counterproposal Amid Nuclear Enrichment Standoff With US

  This edition of the Farda Briefing looks at how Iran is pushing to maintain its uranium enrichment capabilities and what analysts say this means for nuclear talks moving forward.

• June 06, 2025

  Teenage TikTok Star's Killing Sparks Outrage Over Violence Against Women In Pakistan

  Women in Pakistan are protesting the killing of a 17-year-old social media influencer. On June 3, police in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, said they arrested a 22-year-old man for killing Sana Yousaf a day earlier.

• June 06, 2025

  Russia's Migrant Crackdown Expands With Mandatory Mobile Tracking

  Russia is preparing to launch a sweeping new system to monitor migrant workers, combining biometric registration, location tracking, and intensified police oversight.

• June 05, 2025

  Where Things Stand After Ukrainian Drone Strikes Deep In Russia, Istanbul Talks, And A Trump-Putin Phone Call

  After a second round of direct peace talks in Istanbul on June 2, it seemed like Russia and Ukraine were even further from an agreement to end Russia’s war on Ukraine than they had been when they sat down for the talks. Days later, the hurdles to peace may be even higher.

• June 05, 2025

  The Taliban's Latest Target? Religious Scholars Who Speak Out.

  Afghanistan's hard-line Taliban rulers have detained several Islamic clerics. Most of those incarcerated have publicly criticized the Taliban government or offered advice on how to change or improve vital policies.

• June 05, 2025

  Why Are Ukrainians Accused Of Torching Kier Starmer's Properties? A Chat Group For Jobs May Hold Clues

  British police have implicated four men, including two Ukrainian nationals, in a plot to set fire to properties linked to the British prime minister. It’s a head-scratching case that has raised fears of a secret recruiting campaign backed by Russian intelligence.

• June 04, 2025

  NATO Set To Agree On New Defense Budget Targets

  NATO defense ministers meet on June 5 in a last ministerial meeting before the big annual NATO summit on June 24-25, when the military alliance's 32 heads of state and government, including US President Donald Trump, gather at The Hague.

• June 03, 2025

  After Round Two Of Russia-Ukraine Talks, Peace Seems Even More Elusive

  The second round of negotiations to resolve Europe’s largest land war since World War II ended with even less of an outcome than the first round.

• June 03, 2025

  EU Members Playing The Waiting Game On New Russia Sanctions

  When the European Commission started briefing EU states last month on the next sanctions package expected to be imposed on Russia, the 27 member nations expected concrete written proposals to follow. They're still waiting.

• June 03, 2025

  Inside The Struggle To Free Ukraine's Azovstal Defenders From Russian Captivity

  The largest prisoner exchange between Russia and Ukraine returned thousands -- but none were fighters from the Azov Brigade, one of Ukraine’s most symbolic military units, known for defending Mariupol’s last stronghold, the Azovstal steel plant.

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