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West Asia
Al-Qaida in Syria releases 16 Lebanese prisoners in swap deal
Al Qaeda’s Syrian wing, the Nusra Front, released Lebanese soldiers and policemen held captive since August 2014 in a Qatari-mediated swap deal that also secured freedom for a jailed ex-wife of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. According to AlAraby AlJadeed, the sixteen Lebanese servicemen were captured by Nusra on the…
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West Asia
Israelis convicted of burning Palestinian teen alive
Court finds two Israeli minors guilty of burning to death Mohammed Abu Khdeir but delays ruling over the accused ringleader, waiting for the results of a psychiatric evaluation. According to Alarabiya, the court said that the three of them admitted to kidnapping Mohammed Abu Khdeir, torturing him and burning him alive, in…
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West Asia
Iran’s famous orchestra barred from performance over female musicians
A high-profile performance in Iran by the Tehran Symphony Orchestra was cancelled at the last minute because it was due to feature female musicians. The orchestra conductor Ali Rahbari said on Sunday he was told 15 minutes before the orchestra was scheduled to play at a major sporting event that…
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West Asia
Saudi women begin first-ever election campaign
Hundreds of Saudi women began campaigning for public office on Sunday, in a first for women in the conservative kingdom’s slow reform process. More than 800 women are standing alongside thousands of men in the 12 December municipal ballot, which will also mark the first time that women in Saudi Arabia…
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South East Asia
UFC comes to Seoul: Korean fighters show grit
Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) held its first ever event in Seoul, South Korea on Saturday, November 28. The card was filled with numerous bouts featuring the homegrown talent as well as international fighters in a show of pure grit, strength and focus. The UFC, one of the fastest-growing sports in…
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South East Asia
Ex-President Kim Young-sam’s funeral takes place
The funeral for former President Kim Young-sam began at the National Assembly in Yeouido, Seoul at 2 p.m. today. Over 10,000 mourners attended including Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn, the head of the funeral committee, government officials, business representatives and foreign ambassadors and envoys. President Park Geun-hye partially attended the ceremony,…
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South East Asia
Over 100-year old Korean Traditional music recordings discovered
Eleven rare albums of gugak, or traditional Korean music, dating back to the Korean Empire (1897-1910) have been uncovered by the Korea Traditional Music Association, the group announced Monday. The discovery of the eleven albums, released under the early American recording company Victor Talking Machine Company in the early 1900s,…
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South East Asia
Koh Sun-woong named best director of the year
Director Koh Sun-woong was named Best Director of the Year by the Korea Theater Directors Association (KTDA), Tuesday. The association chose the 47-year-old as the winner of their inaugural award, citing his creative contributions to the development of Korean theater. Known for his playful yet stylish style based on an…
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South East Asia
Two Koreas hold working-level dialogue this afternoon
North and South Korea kicked off a working-level meeting on Thursday afternoon to decide details of a high-level talks that the two countries agreed in August to hold as soon as possible, Yonhap news agency reported Thursday. The preparatory meeting took place on the North’s side of the truce village…
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West Asia
Flooding brings Qatar to a near standstill
A year’s worth of rain deluged parts of Qatar on Wednesday 25 November as seasonal storms moving through Saudi Arabia flooded streets in a city northwest of the capital, Riyadh. The storm clouded over parts of the Arabian Peninsula, but struck Doha, the capital of Qatar, particularly hard. At Hamad International Airport…
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