Saudi businesses catering to haj visitor have taken a hit this year as far fewer pilgrims arrive and those who come have less cash to spend. Saudi authorities say only about 1.86 million pilgrims, including around 1.3 million coming from outside the country, are attending this year’s haj, down from[…]
Zimbabwean police plan to ban public demonstrations in the capital for a month, according to a public notice issued on Tuesday that opposition lawyers said marked a slide toward a police state. Political tension is rising in the southern African nation after protests in the last three months against the[…]
The Philippines president says US troops “have to go” from the south of his country. He blames American soldiers for inflaming tensions with the local Muslim population, saying they would “never have peace” with a US military presence. Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte says he is opposed to US soldiers being[…]
Colombia’s Marxist FARC fighters have apologised for the “great pain” they caused by kidnapping thousands of people to finance half a century of conflict. FARC, or the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, acknowledged in a video recording late on Sunday that it had taken captives over the years but would[…]
A nationwide ceasefire in Syria brokered by the United States and Russia began at sundown on Monday, coinciding with the Muslim Eid al-Adha holiday, but there are concerns about whether it will hold. Several hours into the ceasefire, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said major conflict zones across[…]
Ruinous violence has raged in several parts of Syria, shortly after the US and Russia sealed an ambitious agreement aimed at breathing life back into a stuttering peace process. More than 100 people were reported killed in a series of bombing raids on rebel-held parts of Aleppo province in the[…]
At least 24 people have been killed and 50 injured after a fire engulfed a packaging factory north of the Bangladeshi capital, Dhaka. The Dhaka Tribune newspaper reported on Saturday that the fire erupted due to a boiler explosion at the Tampako Packaging Factory in the industrial town of Tongi,[…]
At least 11 people have been killed and more than a hundred injured after a magnitude 5.7 earthquake hit northern Tanzania. The quake struck 43km from Bukoba, a city on the western shore of Lake Victoria on Saturday, at a depth of 10km, the US Geological Survey said. Tremors were[…]
After 35 years of delivering sermons and leading prayers in Namirah Mosque, Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul Aziz Bin Abdullah Al-Asheikh, chairman of the Senior Scholars’ Commission and Ifta Council, has apologized and will not be taking the job this year for health reasons. Al-Asheikh used to deliver the sermon and[…]
Gabon’s opposition leader lodged a constitutional court challenge on Thursday against a presidential election he narrowly lost, hoping to overturn a result whose validity has been questioned at home and abroad. Former foreign minister Jean Ping lost the Aug. 27 election to President Ali Bongo by fewer than 6,000 votes,[…]
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