10-12-2023 MOSCOW: Vladimir Putin on Friday moved to prolong his repressive and unyielding grip on Russia for at least another six years, announcing his candidacy in the presidential election next March that he is all but certain to win, according to state media reports. Putin still commands wide support after …

10-12-2023 NEW YORK/ GAZA CITY: Pro-Palestinian activists are challenging TIME Magazine’s choice of Taylor Swift as Person of the Year, arguing that the honour should be bestowed upon Gaza-based journalists who have risked their lives to report on the Israeli bombardment and siege. Swift’s recognition comes after a year of …

09-12-2023 UNITED NATIONS: UN secretary general Antonio Guterres spoke this afternoon about the “serious risk to the maintenance of international peace and security”, citing the spillover of hostilities in “the occupied West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen”. He triggered Article 99, prompting Friday’s UN Security Council vote, because he …

09-12-2023 PARIS: A French court has convicted six teenagers in connection with the 2020 beheading of history teacher Samuel Paty, whose murder shocked the country. In a decision on Friday, the court found five of the six defendants, aged 14 through 15 at the time of the attack, guilty of …

09-12-2023 COPENHAGEN: Denmark’s parliament has banned the “inappropriate treatment” of religious texts with a bill widely known in the country as the Quran law. Offenders now face a fine or up to two years in jail after a 94-77 vote. It follows a series of burnings of Islam’s holy book …

09-12-2023 SANA’A/ DUBAI: Yemen’s Houthi group launched several ballistic missiles at military posts in the southern Israeli city of Eilat, the group’s military spokesperson said in a statement on Wednesday. Earlier Wednesday, the Mason, a U.S. Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, shot down a drone that originated from a part of Yemen …

09-12-2023 ATHENS: Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan sounded an upbeat note on the future of Greco-Turkish relations as he arrived in Athens on Thursday in a visit both countries hope can reboot ties after years of friction. “It will be much more beneficial for the future if we look at things …

09-12-2023 GAZA CITY: The BBC’s Rushdi Abualouf, who has reported from Gaza for decades, left the territory with his family on 20 November for the sake of their safety. It was six weeks after the Hamas attacks on southern Israel that has led to weeks of Israeli bombardment within Gaza. …

09-12-2023 RIYADH/ DUBAI: Saudi Arabia has asked the United States to show restraint in responding to attacks by Yemen’s Houthis against ships in the Red Sea, two sources familiar with Saudi thinking said, as Riyadh seeks to contain spillover from the Hamas-Israel war. The Iran-aligned Houthis have waded into the …

09-12-2023 LONDON/ MOSCOW: The UK is accusing Russia’s Security Service, the FSB, of a sustained cyber-hacking campaign, targeting politicians and others in public life. The government said one group stole data through cyber-attacks, which was later made public, including material linked to the 2019 election. Russia has repeatedly denied claims …