Iraqi lawmakers sacked on Thursday the governor of Kirkuk over a referendum on Kurdish independence set for September 25 as Turkey warned the vote would “have a cost.” The sacking of Najmaldin Karim came upon a request made by Prime Minister Haider Abadi after Kirkuk – an oil-rich provin
A Saudi pilot was killed in southern Yemen while providing air support for an operation against al-Qaeda militants, the official spokesman for the Coalition for the Restoration of Legitimacy in Yemen said Thursday. The Saudi Royal Air Force plane crashed in the southern province of Abyan on Wednesda
Twenty-four people, mostly teenage boys, were killed Thursday when a blaze tore through a religious boarding school in Malaysia, in what officials said was one of the country’s worst fire disasters for years. The blaze broke out before dawn in the tahfiz — an Islamic religious school 
Eight patients at a sweltering nursing home died after Hurricane Irma knocked out the air conditioning, bringing total number of storm-related fatalities in Florida to 20. The incident raised worries Wednesday about the safety of millions of senior citizens amid power outages that could go on for da
The UN Security Council on Wednesday broke its weeks-long silence on the crisis in Myanmar and called for an end to the violence in Rakhine state that has sparked the mass exodus of Rohingya Muslims who according to UN chief Antonio Guterres are the victims of ethnic cleansing. Following a closed-do
UN chief Antonio Guterres said Wednesday he has been trying to have a “constructive relationship” with US President Donald Trump, hoping that will be his message when he makes his first address to world leaders at the United Nations next week. Trump will speak at the UN General Assembly
The Egyptian army thwarted on Wednesday a terrorist attack against a security position in northern Sinai. A military spokesman said that two soldiers and five “takfiri” elements were killed in the failed assault. Two others were wounded. Tamer al-Rifai said in a Facebook statement that the security
Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi will not attend next week’s United Nations General Assembly as international aid poured in to the Rohingya Muslims that have continued to flow into Bangladesh to escape the violence in their country. Suu Kyi was skipping the assembly in order address domestic security
Apple Inc on Tuesday unveiled its latest smartphone model, the iPhone X, on the tenth anniversary of the groundbreaking device. The glass and stainless steel device features an edge-to-edge display that Chief Executive Tim Cook called “the biggest leap forward since the original iPhone.” The iPhone
The US Supreme Court agreed on Tuesday to an administration request on maintaining a strict policy on refugees. The justices approved an administration request to block a lower court ruling that would have eased the refugee ban and allowed up to 24,000 refugees to enter the country before the end of
Halimah Yacob, a former parliament speaker, became Singapore’s first woman president on Wednesday in a contest where she was sole candidate because no one else was qualified to run. Aiming to strengthen a sense of inclusivity in the multicultural city-state, Singapore had decreed the presidency, a l
The First Summit of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) on Science and Technology concluded its proceedings in Astana, Kazakhstan, on Monday, 11 September 2017, with the adoption of Astana Declaration. The Declaration stipulated that the second S&T summit would be held in Uzbekistan at
French President Emmanuel Macron pledged to cut through red tape to quickly rebuild the islands of the French Caribbean during a visit on Tuesday meant to dispel anger at his government` s response to Hurricane Irma, which killed at least 43 people in the region. Macron was due to travel on Tuesday
Six current and former US officials revealed that President Donald Trump is studying a new strategy that would allow for stricter American retaliation to Iranian forces and their agents in Iraq and Syria and their backing of extremist groups. The officials said that the proposal was prepared by Secr
The Royal Saudi Air Force is preparing for the upcoming joint drills with the Egyptian air force, reported the Saudi Press Agency (SPA). The Faisal 2017 exercises will take place in Egypt next week in line with the Kingdom’s great efforts to train all divisions of the military. The drills are part o
Residents of Florida started to return to their homes on Tuesday after they had fled the destruction of Hurricane Irma as officials were slowly piecing together the scope of its vicious path across the peninsula. The fate of the Florida Keys, where Irma rumbled through with Category 4 muscle, remain
The United Nations Security Council unanimously approved on Monday new sanctions against North Korea that bans it from importing all natural gas liquids and condensates. The sanctions were not the toughest-ever measures sought by the administration of US President Donald Trump that had vowed to ban
Lebanese director Ziad Doueiri was briefly detained by his country’s authorities for a trip to Israel he made six years ago where he filmed one of his movies. He was detained on Sunday night as he arrived at Beirut’s Rafik Hariri International Airport. He was interrogated for 90 minutes and appeared
The United Nations Security Council will vote Monday on a draft resolution imposing new sanctions on North Korea after the United States toned down its demands in a bid to win support from Russia and China. The United had originally pushed for a strict oil embargo, as well as a freeze on the foreign
The United States Justice Department on Monday filed an emergency application at the US Supreme Court seeking to block an appeals court decision that curbed President Donald Trump’s effort to bar most refugees from entering the United States. According to Reuters, the department did not ask the cour
