Hrabove, Ukraine, AP—Rescuers retrieved more bodies on Monday in the sprawling fields of east Ukraine where Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was downed, killing all 298 people aboard. The chaotic rescue effort, which was marred by an outage in the refrigerated train that was to transport many of the dead
Casablanca, Asharq Al-Awsat—Morocco’s Addoha Property Group is planning to issue bonds worth 2 billion Moroccan dirhams (244 million US dollars) this week, in a bid to restructure existing debt. Issued between July 23–25 the new restructured debt will be secured against a mortgage on a 355-hec
London, Asharq Al-Awsat—Thanks to the presence of a number of pan-Arab newspapers and media outlets (including Asharq Al-Awsat) in London, for the last decade the US Embassy in the city has played host to one of the State Department’s Regional Media Hubs which aims to conduct ‘public diplomacy’ in t
Torez, Ukraine, AP—Rebels have recovered the black boxes from downed Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 and will hand them over to the International Civil Aviation Organization, a rebel leader said Sunday. Alexander Borodai also said the bodies recovered from the crash site in eastern Ukraine would remain
Beirut, Asharq Al-Awsat—More than 700 people were killed in Syria over the course of Thursday and Friday, in what activists say were the bloodiest 48 hours of fighting in the conflict to date. The head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), Rami Abdul Rahman, told Asharq Al-Awsat that th
Cairo, AP—Rival Libyan militias battled for control the capital’s international airport Sunday, fighting that killed at least three people, a security official said. The week-long fight over the airport is being waged by a powerful militia from the western city of Zintan, which controls the fa
Tunis, Asharq Al-Awsat—Tunisian security forces have arrested 63 terror suspects in the wake of last week’s terrorist attack which left over a dozen army soldiers dead, an official spokesman said on Saturday. In a statement, the Ministry of Interior said it had carried out a wide-scale security oper
Gaza, Reuters—At least 40 Palestinians were killed on Sunday by Israeli shelling in a Gaza neighborhood, where bodies were strewn in the street and thousands fled toward a hospital packed with wounded, witnesses and health officials said. The mass casualties in the Shejaia district in northeast Gaza
Jakarta, AP—After an ugly presidential election campaign, Indonesia is set to declare the winner on Tuesday—but that may not settle a simmering dispute between the two candidates, both of whom claim victory. Unofficial counts by eight polling agencies of the July 9 election have given Joko Widodo, t
Riyadh, Asharq Al-Awsat—The planned Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) consumer protection commission will be launched in 2016, according to a source familiar with the situation who spoke to Asharq Al-Awsat on the condition of anonymity. The GCC has moved to set up a commission to protect consumers afte
Cairo, Asharq Al-Awsat—With Iraq’s Kurds set to nominate their candidates for the Iraqi presidency on Sunday, there are hopes of a breakthrough in negotiations to form a new government following legislative elections on April 30. Agreement on a prime minister, who should be a Shi’ite, could very wel
Kabul, Reuters—As flying over conflict zones comes under scrutiny following the downing of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 in Ukraine, Afghanistan, one of the world’s most dangerous places, is worried airlines might once again opt to avoid its airspace. Afraid of being shot down, some airlines
Ramallah, Asharq Al-Awsat—Turkey and Qatar are trying to secure a ceasefire agreement between Hamas and Israel to end the violence in Gaza, according to Hamas’s top representative in Lebanon. In comments to Asharq Al-Awsat, Osama Hamdan, who is also a member of the Hamas politburo, spoke of “communi
As the deadline for P5+1 group nuclear negotiations with Iran is extended by 4-months until November, commentators assume that the four Western powers involved, the United States, Great Britain, France and Germany, are united in their determination to curtail Iranian nuclear ambitions. However, in t
New York, AP—NBC said Friday it was sending Middle East correspondent Ayman Mohyeldin back to the Gaza strip this weekend after he left the region for unexplained reasons following his eyewitness report on the killing of four Palestinian boys on a beach this week. The network praised Mohyeldin
London, Asharq Al-Awsat—Iran and the P5+1 world powers have agreed to extend negotiations to reach a final comprehensive agreement on Iran’s nuclear program by four months, until November 24. The interim agreement reached last November, which was set to expire on July 20, has also been extended, all
Gaza and Jerusalem, Reuters—Israeli soldiers in tanks and bulldozers dug in across a mile-wide strip of eastern Gaza on Saturday as Palestinian officials said military strikes had pushed the mostly civilian death toll past 300. The military said its engineers were concentrating on an effective
London, Asharq Al-Awsat—South Sudan’s army has said that more than 60 soldiers loyal to rebel leader and former Vice-President Riek Machar have been killed. In a statement to Asharq Al-Awsat, the spokesman for the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), Philip Aguer, said that the soldiers had been k
Hrabove and Washington, Reuters—US President Barack Obama said the downing of a Malaysian jetliner in a Ukrainian region controlled by Russian-backed separatists should be a “wake-up call for Europe and the world” in a crisis that appears to be at a turning point and warned Russia
Erbil, Asharq Al-Awsat—Ailing Iraqi President Jalal Al-Talabani will return to his country on Saturday after a year and a half in Germany receiving medical treatment, his Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) party said Friday. The 80-year-old, who has been receiving specialist medical treatment follow
