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US soldiers in the northern Syrian city of Manbij last week. Delil Souleiman / AFP / Getty Images Two members of the US-led coalition fighting in Syria were killed by a roadside bomb Thursday night, and five others were wounded, the US military said Friday. The Pentagon declined to identify the dead, but one was a British soldier embedded with US troops, the British Defense Ministry confirmed — the first British death in the fight against the Islamic State in Syria. The other reportedly was an American, though the Pentagon has not yet said so publicly. The Pentagon in recent months has declined to provide such details about US troop deaths. The blast occurred near Manbij in northern Syria, close to the Turkish border. The incident occurred when an improvised explosive device went off late Thursday night, US Central Command said in a statement. The five wounded “received immediate care and are being evacuated for further medical treatment,” it said. The official US statement d...

Migrants cheer after clearing the first immigration checkpoint in Chiapas. Luc Forsyth for BuzzFeed News Taking a drag from her cigarette, a Mexican immigration agent looked out toward a caravan of migrants that grew larger with each step they took on the two-lane highway. When the agent, who'd covered her uniform with an orange and white shawl, learned that the Central American migrants heading her way numbered more than 1,000, she took off for the restaurant across the street. “I'm going to have a relaxing Coke,” she told BuzzFeed News. For five days now hundreds of Central Americans — children, women, and men, most of them from Honduras — have boldly crossed immigration checkpoints, military bases, and police in a desperate, sometimes chaotic march toward the United States. Despite their being in Mexico without authorization, no one has made any effort to stop them. Organized by a group of volunteers called Pueblos Sin Fronteras, or People Without Borders, the caravan...

Keith Raniere Youtube / US Department of Justice MEXICO CITY — Keith Raniere, leader of the self-help group NXIVM who was arrested in the US earlier this week, had been doing business with the Mexican government through a network of companies since 2008, in partnership with two of the most powerful families in Mexico. Through a network of five companies, Raniere, his wife Nancy Salzman, Clare Bronfman, daughter of multimillionaire Edgar Bronfman, and two relatives of Mexican politicians have been awarded government contracts worth millions of Mexican pesos. Emiliano Salinas, son of former Mexican president Carlos Salinas, and Alejandra González Anaya, sister of the current secretary of finance and public credit, are both part of a corporate network with Raniere, according to documents reviewed by BuzzFeed News. Emiliano Salinas, son of former Mexican president Carlos Salinas. Maurizio Montes de Oca / BuzzFeed Emiliano Salinas serves as the majority shareholder in a corporate h...

Forces deployed to al-Tanf in 2017. Provided to BuzzFeed News GAZIANTEP, Turkey — It’s called Area 55: a 55-square-kilometer zone that encompasses the main highway connecting Damascus to Baghdad. The barren land, situated near a tri-border area where Syria, Iraq, and Jordan meet, has increasingly become a source of friction between Moscow and Washington. A US-backed Syrian Arab rebel faction controls the stretch of desert in far southeastern Syria, working with American and British troops at a base near the town of al-Tanf, but few understand precisely why. US officials say the position is meant to guard against the potential resurgence of ISIS. But the rebels, numbering several thousand, say they are there to prevent Iran from moving material and personnel back and forth between Iraq and Syria. Al-Tanf happens to lie directly between Baghdad and Damascus, both of which are heavily influenced by Tehran. “The Free Syrian Army is working with the US and UK in the desert along the Ir...

Jim Mattis greets John Bolton. Brendan Smialowski / AFP / Getty Images The long-awaited first meeting between Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Trump’s bombastic incoming national security adviser John Bolton did not disappoint. “I’ve heard that you’re actually the devil incarnate and I wanted to meet you,” Mattis told him in an off-mic moment that was caught by TV cameras when he greeted him on the Pentagon steps. Bolton laughed. The relationship between the two key members of Trump’s war cabinet, who hadn't met before and seem to hold opposing views on top national security issues, has been the subject of speculation since the president announced last week that Bolton will replace national security adviser H.R. McMaster. The Pentagon chief has said he has “no reservations” and “no concerns at all” about working with Bolton, who has been accused of abusive workplace behavior by subordinates. “Last time I checked, he's an American and I can work with an American, okay?” h...

Simon Maina / AFP / Getty Images NAIROBI — A Kenyan-born attorney who had been stuck inside a cramped bathroom an airport in Nairobi for the past three days has now been deported from the country and is currently receiving medical care at an airport hospital in Dubai. It’s the latest in the dramatic saga surrounding Miguna Miguna — a former ally of the opposition party who swore in its leader, Raila Odinga, as the “people’s president of Kenya” but was swiftly deported a week later. In a series of social media posts Thursday, he said that immigration and police officers had beaten and drugged him while he was detained at Nairobi’s Jomo Kenyatta International Airport. He posted on Facebook Thursday morning that he had been “dragged, assaulted, drugged and forcefully flown to Dubai,” and that he was in need of medical attention. “My ribs and body is hurting all over. This is a travesty of justice!” he wrote. He attempted to return to Kenya from Canada, where he also holds a pass...

Ethan Miller / Getty Images Despite Congress's agreement last week to spend $380 million to help states replace voting machines that don't produce a paper trail, it's likely that tens of thousands of voters will cast their ballots in this year's midterm elections on outdated equipment that the Department of Homeland Security has called a "national security concern." That's because the newly approved money will be allocated to all 50 states instead of just those that have the greatest need to replace voting machines. Thirteen states use voting machines that can't be audited because they don't produce a paper trail to check against the machine's electronic tabulations. Of those, only two would receive enough funding under the recent appropriation to replace all their machines; the rest could replace only a fraction of what they need. For example, the funding would cover less than half the cost of what it would take for Pennsylvania — a state...

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov attends a meeting of Russian President Vladimir Putin. AFP Contributor / AFP / Getty Images Russian President Vladimir Putin's spokesperson compared the women who accused disgraced producer Harvey Weinstein of sexual assault and harassment to prostitutes. Dmitry Peskov made his comments Thursday at Moscow’s Higher School of Economics, Russian outlet Meduza reported , while finally addressing charges leveled against senior Russian lawmaker Leonid Slutsky. Four women — all journalists — filed a complaint with the ethics committee in the Duma, the lower house of Russia's parliament, against Slutsky in early March. Over the years, they said, Slutsky had kissed, groped, and otherwise harassed them and other women. Last week, the committee cleared Slutsky, who runs the foreign affairs committee, of any wrongdoing. “This has less to do with the Ethics Committee than the police,” Peskov said on Thursday. “If he groped you, if he harassed you, w...

BuzzFeed News; Getty Images MEXICO CITY — When Televisa, Mexico’s largest TV network, reigned supreme, it had virtually no competition. In millions of households around Mexico, families gathered around the television after dinner, watching soap operas and listening to the evening news show on one of the channels it owned. Televisa flooded its airtime with positive coverage of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, while suppressing critical news, helping the party govern autocratically for 71 uninterrupted years, and then contributing to its return to power in 2012 after a brief hiatus. So for decades, presidential candidates knew that if they wanted a real fighting chance, they needed Televisa’s blessing. But the television giant’s popularity and influence have plummeted since the last presidential election, leaving in its wake a fragmented media environment and — as Mexico finally catches up to the US and other countries — opening the door to the rise of social media as ...

It was the first time the Nobel Prize winner had returned to the country since moving to the UK. Nobel Prize winner Malala Yousafzai returned to Pakistan this week for the first time since she was attacked there in 2012. Yousafzai was attacked by Taliban militants trying to stop her from attending school. Her attempted murder propelled her to worldwide recognition. Afterward, she and her family eventually settled in the UK, where she completed her secondary education, and won a place at Oxford. Edgard Garrido / Reuters from BuzzFeed - World https://ift.tt/2pOoHTM

Relatives of prisoners fight with police officers as they wait for information outside a police station in Valencia, Venezuela, on Wednesday. Juan Carlos Hernandez / AP A fire at a police station in Venezuela has killed at least 68 people. Violent scenes followed the fire on Wednesday, in the city of Valencia in Carabobo state, as relatives of the detained prisoners waited to find out if they had died. Police could be seen using riot shields and Venezuelan media reported the use of tear gas to disperse the crowd. Prosecutors have vowed to investigate the circumstances of the fire, reportedly sparked by rioting prisoners in the police station's cells. Carlos Nieto, head of Una Ventana a la Libertad (A Window on Freedom), an association that monitors conditions in Venezuela's jails, said that a mattress was set alight in an attempted jailbreak, after a police officer had been shot in the leg. State official Jesús Santander confirmed that one person was shot. Tarek William...

South Korean Unification Minister Cho Myoung-Gyon talks with North Korean delegation head Ri Son-Gwon during a meeting on Thursday, in the border village of Panmunjom, North Korea. Handout / Getty Images The leaders of North Korea and South Korea will meet at a historic summit next month, marking the culmination of the recent thawing of a traditionally hostile relationship. Kim Jong Un will meet South Korean President Moon Jae-in on April 27 in what will be only the third such meeting between the two powers, the Yonhap News agency reported. The meeting was agreed at preliminary talks in a North Korean border village in the demilitarized zone on Thursday. "Over the past 80 days or so, many events that were unprecedented in inter-Korean relations took place," said Ri Son Gwon, the head of Pyongyang's delegation. South Korean Unification Minister Cho Myoung-gyun (centre) crosses the Korean border line to attend high-level talks at the border village of Panmunjom on T...

Sergei Skripal and Yulia Skripal. EPA / Facebook Yulia Skripal, who was poisoned alongside her father Sergei Skripal, a former Russian spy, is no longer in critical condition. The 33-year-old is in a stable condition and improving rapidly, according to Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust. Dr Christine Blanshard, medical director for Salisbury District Hospital, where she is being treated, said: “I’m pleased to be able to report an improvement in the condition of Yulia Skripal. She has responded well to treatment but continues to receive expert clinical care 24 hours a day.” Blanshard thanked hospital staff for the "high quality care" that they continued to deliver to those involved in the nerve agent attack, which took place in Salisbury earlier this month. "I am very proud both of our front-line staff and all those who support them.” Earlier this week, prime minister Theresa May said it was feared that neither of the Skripals would recover. Sergei Skripal remains ...

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg attend a town hall meeting at Facebook headquarters in Menlo Park, California. Susana Bates / AFP / Getty Images India wants to know whether controversial British data analytics firm Cambridge Analytica, or any other company, has used data from Facebook’s Indian users to influence elections in the country over the years. India’s Ministry of Information and Technology issued a notice to Facebook on Wednesday asking five questions, including how Facebook planned to prevent its platform from being exploited to influence elections in India, Facebook’s largest market outside the US with over 240 million users. Facebook’s deadline to respond to the Ministry’s questions is April 7. India is gearing up for national elections in 2019, and several key state elections through 2018. Earlier this month, Ravi Shankar Prasad, India’s IT minister, warned Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg that the country would summon him if “any d...

Gina Haspel Handout / Reuters President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the CIA staunchly advocated for the destruction of videotapes showing detainees being tortured and obtained the legal opinions that were used to justify their destruction, a BuzzFeed News review of records and published accounts shows. That version of Gina Haspel's role in destroying the tapes contradicts the narrative being pressed by CIA officials that Haspel was only following orders when she helped engineer the tapes’ destruction and that she has served the agency well for 33 years, almost all as a clandestine officer. The narrative is intended to help build support for Haspel, who in the early 2000s was chief of staff to Jose Rodriguez when he ran the CIA’s National Clandestine Service and authorized the tapes’ destruction. She's now the CIA's deputy director. What Haspel did in the lead-up to that destruction is likely to be a major point of contention as the Senate considers her nomination. ...

South African Broadcasting Corporation / Via youtube.com NAIROBI — For the first time in South African history, a court on Wednesday sentenced a white woman to prison for making racist comments, a judgment that has given some hope that charges of racism will be treated more seriously. Vicki Momberg was sentenced to up to three years in prison for an incident that took place in Johannesburg in February 2016, when she was filmed making derogatory comments toward the black police officers who had responded to her call of a reported robbery. She was convicted last November of four counts of “crimen injuria,” or the use of racially offensive language. In the viral video, Momberg can be heard talking to someone on the phone about the police officers dispatched to the scene. She referred to them as “kaffirs,” an offensive and derogatory term for black South Africans that was used during apartheid, and which lawmakers have in recent years tried to criminalize along with other forms of ha...

Mohamed el-Sherif mocked up a fake sign to prank his brother during the Egyptian election — and then it all got pretty out of hand. Hi. This week Egyptians have been voting in their presidential election. There are two candidates: incumbent president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, and another guy (OK, Moussa Mostafa Moussa) who has said he wants Sisi to win . A lot of people have compared the election to what took place in Russia recently — Sisi is pretty much guaranteed to win. Fethi Belaid / AFP / Getty Images The country has been plastered with posters and declarations of support for Sisi. Ammar Awad / Reuters One exception however is voter Mohamed el-Sherif, who posted the sign apparently outside his family's home on Facebook. The sign said the whole family supported the president...except for "the disobedient Waleed," Mohamed's brother. The full caption reads: "The family of el-Sherif, except for the disobedient Waleed el-Sherif, supports and pledges alleg...