Le Pen’s French presidency bid in jeopardy after election ban
A French court on Monday threw into severe doubt far-right leader Marine Le Pen's 2027 bid for president, handing her...Geostrategy
Turkey opposition pushes for early polls as Swedish reporter jailed
Istanbul, Turkey -- The Turkish opposition on Sunday worked to keep up the momentum of the protest movement triggered by...Geostrategy
Yemen’s opposing sides to hold talks in Geneva over prisoner swap
Negotiations overseen in Switzerland by the UN and the International Committee of the Red Cross will see Yemen's warring parties...One of the Houthi delegates to the Geneva talks in a Twitter post on Thursday said that he hoped the negotiations would yield concrete results
According to the ICRC, the last major prisoner swap happened in October 2020 when a total of 1,056 prisoners were set free by both sides
Turkey poll on May 14: Erdogan vows to heal quake-stricken nation
Erdogan banned music from his campaign as he signed a decree on national television that kics off campaigning for what...Voters face a choice between keeping Erdogan's Islamic-rooted party in power until 2028 or handing the reins back to the main secular party of Turkey's founder Kemal Ataturk.
Erdogan's political opponents have formed the type of broad-tent coalition that Erdogan himself relied on to win more than a dozen elections over his career.
COP28 President Designate meets with key US government officials
WASHINGTON DC, US - UAE Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology and COP28 President Designate Dr. Sultan bin Ahmed Al...The UAE minister discussed multilateral development bank reform as weel as an update on recent US climate policy action.
They discussed the need to invest in global clean energy supply chains, and the role of the US-UAE Partnership for Accelerating Clean Energy.
Syria’s Aleppo airport operational after Israeli air attack
DAMASCUS, SYRIA - Syria's Aleppo airport, a key conduit for relief flights after the devastating February earthquake, reopened on Friday, an...The damage caused by the raid forced aid deliveries and all flights to be diverted to Latakia and Damascus airports, the transport ministry had said.
Israeli warplanes killed three people in the raid on the airport in Aleppo, Syria's second city, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor had said.
Iran, Saudi agree to restore severed ties after talks in China
Riyadh cut ties with Tehran after Iranian protesters attacked Saudi diplomatic missions in the Islamic republic in 2016 following the...Ali Shamkhani, the secretary of Iran's Supreme NSC, had travelled to Beijing for "intensive negotiations with his Saudi counterpart" to resolve Riyadh -Tehran problems, IRNA said.
Iraq, a neighbor to both countries, had hosted several rounds of low-level talks between Iran and Saudi Arabia since April 2021.
Israeli settler kills suspected Palestinian gunman in West Bank
An Israeli settler killed an assailant in the occupied West Bank, the Israeli military said, the latest bloodshed in a...The Palestinian health ministry said the settler killed 21-year-old Abd al-Karim al-Sheikh at Qalqilya, a Palestinian city near Dorot Illit.
The attack came hours after a member of the armed wing of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas opened fire on a cafe in Tel Aviv.
Turkey to hold talks with Sweden, Finland on stalled NATO bids
A statement from NATO said that "participants welcomed the progress that has been made" on a three-way deal struck last...Turkey and Hungary are the only NATO countries still to ratify the applications, which must be accepted by all 30 existing members of the military organization
Finland and Sweden dropped their decades-long policies of military non-alignment and applied to join the alliance last May after Moscow's invasion of Ukraine
Bahrain ‘cancels’ HRW visas ahead of parliamentary meet
Dubai, UAE -- Bahrain has revoked visas for two members of Human Rights Watch who planned to attend this week's...The IPU, which groups parliaments around the world and aims to promote democracy, said it was "aware" the visas were revoked.
But IPU said it "is not responsible for the visa process which is a sovereign decision of the host country".
Xi Jinping gets third term as China’s president
The 69-year-old has weathered widespread protests over his zero-Covid policy and the deaths of countless people after its abandonment. But...The appointment by China's rubber-stamp parliament comes after Xi locked in another five years as head of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in October
In an oath beamed live on state television, he vowed to "build a prosperous, strong, democratic, civilized, harmonious and great modern socialist country."
20 years after US invasion, Iraq is closer to Washington, far from ‘liberal democracy’
President George W. Bush's war, launched in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, is seared in memory for its "shock...The decision after the March 20, 2003 ground invasion to dismantle Iraq's state, party and military fuelled years of bloodletting
The US forces, backed mainly by British troops, never found the weapons of mass destruction that had been the justification for the war
