Peshawar, Pakistan (AFP): A fire ripped through the camp of a Chinese company managing the construction of a remote hydropower dam in northwestern Pakistan on Tuesday, officials said. Since 2015, Beijing has poured billions of dollars into Pakistan under an investment scheme known as the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). Private firms h...
Dhaka, Bangladesh (AFP): Hundreds of Bangladeshi firefighters were mobilised in the capital Dhaka on Tuesday to battle an inferno that raged through a popular clothing market and blanketed the city’s oldest neighbourhoods in black smoke. No casualties have been reported so far, but shop owners and fire officials told reporters that the B...
Damascus, Syria (AFP): Two Syrian civilians were killed in an Israeli air strike Tuesday, state media reported, the fourth such attack on government-held areas of the war-torn country in less than a week. “At 00:15 (2115 GMT Monday) the Israeli enemy carried out an air strike… and the attack resulted in the death of two […]
Freetown, Sierra Leone (AFP): Sierra Leone has banned political street rallies, a tradition that has for decades characterised electoral campaigns, less than three months before the presidential election, the government said Monday. Election periods are “no time for dancing and merriment”, but rather “times for deep reflectio...
BEIRUT, Lebanon (AA) – Lebanon is ready to hold municipal elections next month, caretaker Interior Minister Bassam Mawlawi has announced. “I am bound by law to hold elections, and I am convinced that these elections must be held on time,” Mawlawi told a press conference as quoted by the National News Agency on Monday. He […]...
Tunis, Tunisia (AFP): Tunisia’s main opposition coalition has pressed the government to explain a days-long public “absence” of President Kais Saied, saying it had information that he was sick. Saied, 65, has not appeared in public or held any meetings since March 22, according to posts on his Facebook page — the presid...
The Hague, Netherlands (AFP): Former Kosovo president Hashim Thaci was accused of leading a violent campaign against opponents during the 1998-1999 independence war with Serbia as his war crimes trial began on Monday. Thaci and three other leaders of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) rebel group all pleaded not guilty to crimes against humanity...
ISTANBUL (AA) – Azerbaijan on Monday commemorated the soldiers killed during clashes between Baku and Yerevan in the Karabakh region in April 2016. “According to the plan approved by the Azerbaijan Defense Minister, remembrance events were held in types of troops, Army Corps, formations, military units, and special educational institutio...
JERUSALEM (AA) – A human rights group has termed Israel’s National Guard a militia designed for fighting Palestinians, and called for its abolition. In a statement, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel (ADALA) said it has sent an urgent letter to the government’s judicial adviser, Gali Baharav-Miara, Prime Minister Benjami...
ANKARA (AA) — France has voiced displeasure over a recent decision by Burkina Faso to expel correspondents of French newspapers from the West African nation. “France reaffirms its constant and determined engagement in favor of the press freedom and the protection of journalists everywhere in the world,” the French Foreign Ministry ...
