For the first time in history, Swedish female priests outnumber their male counterparts, sixty years after they were first allowed to don the clerical collar, the Church of Sweden said Wednesday. Of the 3,060 priests currently serving in Sweden, 1,533 are female, or 50.1 percent, according to Cristina Grenholm, secretary for the Church of Sweden. […]

French claims about the imprisonment of ethnic and religious minorities in China’s Xinjiang region were unacceptable, China said Wednesday, criticising the accusations as “false”. China’s response came a day after Paris demanded it let independent human rights observers visit the northwestern region, where rights groups and experts estimate over one million Uighurs and other Turkic-speaking […]

Moscow will subsidise holidays taken by Russian tourists who vacation at home instead of the Mediterranean, Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin said Wednesday. The push to boost domestic tourism comes after officials lifted most coronavirus restrictions in June. Yet Russians are still barred from holidaying abroad due to international travel controls imposed to slow the pandemic. […]

United States (US) order to China to close its consulate in Houston was to protect US intellectual property and private information, the State Department said Wednesday. Spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus was elaborating on the incident that has strained already tense relations between the two world powers, as US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo visited Denmark. Under […]

Egypt’s military said it killed 18 suspected Islamist militants in aerial and ground operations in the restive North Sinai region on Tuesday, as part of its battle to quell a long-running insurgency. The army said in a statement that its forces succeeded in foiling “an attack by takfiri terrorist elements on one of the security […]