WASHINGTON — The United States military said that it had carried out an airstrike against a meeting of Qaeda militants on Thursday in Syria and that a number of the extremists had been killed. The American military statement came as Syria activists reported that a mosque had been bombed and that scores of innocent civilians had been killed and wounded. A spokesman for the United States Central […]
A Saudi soldier was killed by gunmen late on Tuesday in the Eastern city of Qatif, in an incident the interior ministry said was carried out by “terrorist elements”. The security patrol came under fire upon approaching a suspicious vehicle, the statement carried by state news agency SPA, adding that the gunmen fled the area. Eastern Province is home to much of Saudi Arabia’s oil production as […]
By John Davison | MOSUL AIRPORT, Iraq MOSUL AIRPORT, Iraq Outside a mosque on the edge of Mosul airport’s ripped up runway, Iraqis made homeless by war sit on suitcases, taking a brief rest before beginning their onward journey, on foot or in buses. Men push wheelchairs carrying elderly relatives or carts loaded with small children over dusty and uneven ground, part of an exodus of people […]
BEIRUT Two suicide bomb attacks killed at least 31 people and wounded dozens more in Damascus on Wednesday, state media reported, in the second such spate of bombings in the Syrian capital in five days. The first suicide bomber targeted the Palace of Justice, the main courthouse in central Damascus near the Old City. Justice Minister Najem al-Ahmad told reporters the initial death toll was 31, mostly […]
GENEVA Negotiations to end the war in Syria must speed up, U.N. Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura told Reuters on Wednesday, on the sixth anniversary of the start of the conflict. “There is no way that we should be accepting the fact that the sixth anniversary becomes the seventh,” he said. “It’s becoming one of the longest and most cruel wars of recent years. That’s why there […]
The president was expected to urge Saudi Arabia to support safe zones in Syria, which the administration has argued would be an alternative to accepting thousands of refugees from a country that has been ripped apart by six years of civil war. Continue reading the main story Mr. Trump and members of his inner circle regard Saudi Arabia as a vital component of the White House strategy […]
Singapore needs to keep a close watch on teachings or statements that are exclusivist and divisive, Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean said yesterday. These have had repercussions in other countries, he noted at a gathering of Islamic religious teachers. “Attacks claimed to be in the name of Islam have led to a rise in Islamophobia, with anti-immigration rhetoric and negative reactions among other communities,” he said. […]
Photo A damaged classroom after shelling in the rebel-held town of Hass in Idlib Province. Credit Ammar Abdullah/Reuters GENEVA — Syrian military airstrikes on rebels were responsible for severing water supplies to 5.5 million people in the Damascus region for weeks starting last December, the United Nations said on Tuesday, rebutting government claims that insurgents were to blame. In a bombing campaign to drive rebel forces from […]
GENEVA, Switzerland: The Assad regime came under fire from two UN bodies on Tuesday, one of which accused Syria’s air force of deliberately bombing water sources in December and another saying Syria has become a “torture chamber.”In a report, the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria said that the deliberate act of bombing water sources, which cut off water for 5.5 million people in and […]
Authored by Patrick Buchanan via Buchanan.org, Not long ago, a democratizing Turkey, with the second-largest army in NATO, appeared on track to join the European Union. That’s not likely now, or perhaps ever. Last week, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan compared Angela Merkel’s Germany to Hitler’s, said the Netherlands was full of “Nazi remnants” and “fascists,” and suggested the Dutch ambassador go home. What precipitated Erdogan’s outbursts? City […]
Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has loomed over European politics for more than a decade, entangled in the awkward embrace of reluctant allies. This weekend he burst into the middle of a fraught electoral season. The Dutch were behaving like Nazis, the Germans too, he said, by banning his foreign minister from speaking at rallies in their countries and setting police dogs on Turks who protested the […]
Photo Hosni Mubarak waved to supporters in 2015, on his 87th birthday, from the Maadi Military Hospital in Cairo. Credit Amr Nabil/Associated Press CAIRO — An Egyptian prosecutor ordered Hosni Mubarak, the toppled Egyptian autocrat, released from the Maadi Military Hospital in southern Cairo, where he has been held for much of the last six years. But as of Monday night, Mr. Mubarak, 88, still had not […]
By Irene Preisinger | MUNICH, Germany MUNICH, Germany German Chancellor Angela Merkel underscored the importance of free trade in a speech to business leaders in Munich, before her first trip to meet U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington for talks on a range of issues, including defense spending. Merkel had been due to meet Trump for more than two hours on Tuesday, but her trip was postponed […]
DUBAI: Humanitarian group Save the Children has released a harrowing series of animations showing how the war in Syria has taken its toll on children.The animated images were created by photographer Nick Ballon and artist Alma Haser and are overlain with testimony by Syrian children who fled the war and now live near the Syria-Turkey border, according to a release from Save the Children.“I hate it when […]
Abraaj Group Art Prize In October last year, Rana Begum won the US$100,000 (Dh367,250) Abraaj Group Art Prize. The title is awarded each year to aid an artist realise a proposed project, which is later unveiled at Art Dubai. Begum, a Bangladeshi-born, London-raised artist, is interested in the geometry of a city. Her brightly coloured, angular metal sculptures and installations look at the unexpected architecture of a […]
ASTANA Russia, Turkey and Iran are pressing ahead with a fresh round of Syria talks in Kazakhstan, Kazakh Foreign Minister Kairat Abdrakhmanov said on Monday, despite a request from the Syrian rebels to delay the meeting. “We are awaiting confirmations from the other parties to the meeting,” Abdrakhmanov told parliament, adding that delegations had already started arriving in the Kazakh capital, Astana. (Reporting by Raushan Nurshayeva; Writing […]
Arabic indie heavyweights Mashrou ‘Leila, The Wanton Bishops and Autostrad are among a goody bag of stellar acts set to play Dubai’s first Step Music festival. Leading hip-hop names including Malika, The Narcycist, Daffy and Flipperachi and Muqata’a are also set for the monster one-day event, taking place at Dubai International Marine Club on Friday April 7. An off-shoot of the annual Step Conference, running from April […]
Photo Babies are carried away away from destroyed buildings following an air strike in Aleppo, Syria, in 2016. Credit Ameer Alhalbi/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Children suffered a “drastic escalation” in violence from the Syrian civil war in 2016, the United Nations said Sunday in a report that showed child deaths jumped at least 20 percent from the year before and recruitment of child combatants more than […]
The anti-Dutch remarks from Turkey inflamed tensions among the Turkish community in the Netherlands, who protested in Rotterdam until the early hours of Sunday, when they were dispersed by police officers wielding batons and water cannons. The police arrested 12 people, and seven were injured, including a policeman, whose hand was broken. Continue reading the main story Though Turkish law technically bars the practice, Turkish ministers are […]
PARIS The French foreign ministry condemned a deadly bombing in Damascus and called on truce guarantors, especially Russia and Iran, to ensure a ceasefire in Syria is fully respected. The death toll from a double bomb attack on Saturday targeting Shi’ites visiting a pilgrimage site in Damascus has climbed to 74, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported on Sunday. “There is more than ever urgency to […]
AMMAN A Syrian alliance of jihadist groups known as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham said on Sunday it was responsible for a double suicide bomb attack in the capital Damascus that killed dozens of people. The group said the attack on Saturday targeted Iranian-backed militias in revenge for what it said was their role in supporting President Bashar al Assad’s “tyrannical rule”, holding them responsible for “killing and displacing” […]
Saudi King Salman’s stop in the Maldives on his month-long tour of Asia brings into focus how this tiny archipelago – best known for high-end tourism and an existential battle against climate change – has emerged as a key player in a regional struggle for influence. Both Riyadh and Beijing are currying favour with the strategically located 820km-long chain of Indian Ocean atolls, in efforts analysts believe […]
Authored by Federico Pieraccini via The Strategic Culture Foundation, While the world continues to decipher, or digest, the new Trump presidency, important changes are afoot within the grand strategic triangle that lies between Russia, Iran and China Away from the current chaos in the United States, major developments are progressing, with Iran, Russia and China coordinating on a series of significant moves crucial for the future of […]
DUBAI // Lubna is a 38-year-old mother who fears she will soon be forced to live on the streets, along with her three-year-old son. She lives in a rented flat paid for by a benefactor. “It’s paid for until the middle the month but then I am on the streets,” she says. Lubna wasn’t always living with the threat of homelessness. She came to Dubai seven years […]
