Pollution claimed the lives of nine million people in 2015, one in every six deaths that year, according to a study published in The Lancet medical journal on Friday. Almost all the deaths, 92 percent, happened in low- and middle-income countries, researchers said, with air pollution the main culpri
Japan’s Emperor Akihito will step down on March 31, 2019 and the Crown Prince is expected to ascend the throne in April, a report said Friday, the first imperial retirement in more than two centuries. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will meet top officials and members of the royal household next mon
A 32-year-old Syrian man was arrested Thursday in the northeastern Greek city of Alexandroupolis over suspected links with terrorist group ISIS, police said Friday. The arrest came following a complaint that was his wife filed against him over domestic abuse, according to the police. She also told a
Nearly 340,000 Rohingya children are seeing a “hell on earth” by living in squalid conditions in Bangladesh camps where they lack enough food, clean water and health care, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said on Friday. Up to 12,000 more children join them every week, f
Iraqi forces took control of Altun Kupri on Friday, the last district in Kirkuk still in the hands of Kurds, following a three-hour battle, security sources said. The town is 50 km far from the city of Erbil, the largest city in the Kurdistan region. Kurdish forces withdrew from the town located on
A suspected US drone strike targeting a car killed three alleged Al-Qaeda members, including a leader in the southern Yemen province of Abyan, local officials said Friday. They said the strike was carried out late Thursday in the Sumaa area of the province, engulfing the car in flames. The leader
The defeat of ISIS in its Syrian bastion of Raqqa was a “historic” achievement, the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces that led the months-long battle said Friday, adding the city would be part of decentralized Syria. “We dedicate this historic victory to all humanity,” said
Chevron has temporarily suspended oil and gas drilling activity in Iraqi Kurdistan, the company said on Thursday, in the latest setback to the region following recent unrest. “Chevron has decided to temporarily suspend its operations,” a company spokeswoman said in a statement. In Septem
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday he hoped Moscow could cooperate with Washington in a broader range of fields. “We have dialogue at the work level and on the level of the special services, the defense ministries, the foreign ministries. We achieve joint results,” Putin s
Spain’s central government threatened Thursday it will press ahead with suspending Catalonia’s autonomy after the region’s leader Carles Puigdemont warned he may declare independence. The central government in Madrid had given Puigdemont until 10:00 am (0800 GMT) on Thursday to say wheth
US President Donald Trump’s special representative for international negotiations said Thursday that an emerging Palestinian unity government must recognize Israel and disarm Hamas movement. Jason Greenblatt, who has repeatedly visited the region to seek ways to restart peace talks, laid out a serie
The Taliban have carried out two suicide car bombings at an army base in Afghanistan’s southern Kandahar province, setting of several hours of fighting and killing at least 43 soldiers, the defense ministry and an Afghan official said Thursday. “A group of insurgents attacked an army base in C
Saudi Arabia’s budget airliner flynas announced on Wednesday making the first commercial flight from Riyadh to Baghdad since 1990, as ties with neighboring Iraq improved over the last period. National flag carrier Saudia, also known as Saudi Arabian Airlines, is also scheduled to operate a fli
Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) has announced the establishment of a new energy service company, Super Esco, designed to increase energy efficiency across government and public buildings and stimulate the growth of the Kingdom’s energy efficiency industry in line with the objective
The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) had approved $ 750,000 worth of financial aid in September 2017 for implementing social, economic, educational, cultural and health projects in a number of OIC member countries, reported the Saudi Press Agency on Wednesday. The Secretary General of the O
A senior Iraqi military commander announced on Wednesday that Kurdish Peshmerga fighters have retreated to territories they had controlled in June 2014 before ISIS swept through northern and western Iraq. They returned to the June 2014 line after turning over their positions in the Nineveh province
A car bomb attack struck a Pakistani security force truck in the restive southwestern city of Quetta during the morning rush hour on Wednesday, killing at least six people. In a separate attack in Quetta, a police officer was gunned down by assailants riding on a motorcycle, authorities said. The ca
President Xi Jinping made a pledge on Wednesday to transform China into a modern socialist country, vowing to counter challenges, ranging from corruption, climate change and Taiwan’s separatist drive. During the opening of the twice-a-decade Communist Party Congress, he painted a vision of a “new er
London – Raqqa was liberated on Tuesday from the grasp of the ISIS terrorist group that had turned the ancient city into its stronghold and a symbol of its atrocities. The city has been inhabited for hundreds of years, and its peak, it enjoyed a golden age under the early Islamic empire of the Abbas
At least even miners were killed and another was missing after part of a coal mine in Turkey’s southeastern province of Sirnak collapsed on Tuesday, government spokesman Bekir Bozdag said. Reuters cited Turkey’s energy ministry as saying that the coal mine was unlicensed and had been operating illeg
