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China has ordered the closure of the US consulate in the south-western city of Chengdu, in a tit-for-tat escalation between the two countries. China said the move was a “necessary response” to the US, which ordered China to close its consulate in Houston earlier this week. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the US decision was taken because China was “stealing” intellectual property.
The US and UK have accused Russia of testing an anti-satellite weapon in space, in the latest sign that a space-based arms race is heating up. General John Raymond, the head of the new US Space Force, said the alleged test of a projectile, conducted on 15 July, was “further evidence of Russia’s continuing efforts to develop and test space-based systems.
A former Nazi concentration camp guard was convicted of thousands of counts of being an accessory to murder and given a two-year suspended prison sentence Thursday, a court announced. The 93-year-old man, identified as Bruno D., was charged with 5,230 counts of accessory to murder over his time as an SS guard at the Stutthof concentration camp from 1944 to 1945.
Thousands of Turks gathered near Hagia Sophia early on Friday for the first prayers there since President Tayyip Erdogan declared the monument a mosque once again. A top Turkish court announced this month it annulled Hagia Sophia’s status as a museum. Erdogan immediately turned back into a mosque a building which was a Christian Byzantine cathedral for 900 years before being seized by Ottoman conquerors and serving as a mosque until 1934.
Two of the British ISIS terrorists dubbed the “Beatles” further incriminated themselves in mistreating Western hostages in Syria. In the interviews, the two men, Alexanda Kotey and El Shafee Elsheikh, for the first time admitted their involvement in the captivity of Ms Mueller, an aid worker who was held captive and tortured and sexually abused before her death in 2015.