-
West Asia
Right activists dismiss Qatar labor reforms
Rights groups on Wednesday criticized reforms of Qatar’s “kafala” labor system for foreign workers, which critics have likened to modern-day slavery, as an AFP report shows. Qatar’s prince, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, approved on Tuesday a new law overseeing the sponsorship “kafala” system – which currently only allows workers to…
Read More » -
South Asia
Nepal elects first female president
Nepal’s parliament, on Wednesday, elected communist lawmaker Bidhya Bhandari as the country’s first female president after the adoption of a landmark constitution last month. The former defense minister and the vice-chair of the ruling Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist Leninist) defeated her opponent Kul Bahadur Gurung by 327 to…
Read More » -
West Asia
Iran could join Syria talks with US and Russia
Iran is likely to be invited for the first time to international talks with the US and Russia over the Syrian conflict after a longstanding opposition, the US says. US state department spokesman John Kirby said it was unclear if Iran’s leaders would attend the talks, starting in Vienna on…
Read More » -
Asaad meets Putin in a surprise Kremlin visit
In his first foreign trip since the conflict in Syria erupted in 2011, Asaad visits Moscow to meet up with Putin in surprising news. After the meeting, AFP reported that Putin pledged to continue to support Damascus militarily, while calling for a political solution involving all groups to try to…
Read More » -
Politics
Pakistani PM Nawaz discusses counter-terrorism with Obama
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif met the US President Barack Obama at the White House on Oct. 22, 2015. They discussed Pakistan’s resolve to take effective action against United Nations-designated terrorist individuals and entities, including Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and its affiliates. President Obama and Prime Minister Nawaz agreed that improvement in Pakistan-India…
Read More » -
West Asia
Netanyahu under fire for blaming holocaust on Palestinians
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has stirred controversy by suggesting the then head of the Muslim community in Jerusalem gave Hitler the idea to exterminate Jews. In a speech on Tuesday 20th October, Netanyahu said the then grand mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, a Palestinian nationalist, convinced Hitler to…
Read More » -
Politics
IS child training camps in Istanbul
Children have been lectured in Istanbul on “the basics of the ideology of Islamic State (IS) group as well as “how to live in an Islamic state”, according to Turkish media reports. In an operation led by Istanbul Police Department Counterterrorism Bureau assisted by the special ops, the counterterrorism police…
Read More » -
Politics
Seoul and Washington release joint statement on North Korea
In a joint news conference in Washington on the 16th of October, Korean president Park Geun Hye and US president Barack Obama discussed North Korea’s nuclear problem. In the summit talk they both promised that they would deal with the North Korean problem as fast as possible. In the joint…
Read More » -
West Asia
Egypt votes in new parliament elections
On Sunday 18th October, people began voting in the first round of the first parliamentary elections since the dissolved parliament of 2012. The voting for the parliament’s first round continues, with a second round expected in November. The results are expected to be known on December. On Saturday 17th October,…
Read More » -
South East Asia
President Park: we can hold summit talks with Japan
During her US official visit, president Park Geun Hye said that Seoul is expected to hold trilateral summit talks between South Korea, China, and Japan in the upcoming month. This will be the first summit meeting in three and half years. Bilateral summit talk with Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe…
Read More »