On Wednesday the US Department of Defense said five prisoners at Guantanamo Bay will be released to the Kazakhstan government as part of an effort by the Obama Administration to expedite the closing of the facility . An interagency Guantanamo Review Task Force conducted a comprehensive review of the cases of Asim Thabit Abdullah Al-Khalaqi, [...]
Palestinian leaders will meet on Wednesday to plan actions after the UN Security Council rejected a resolution on Tuesday to end Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories within three years. Palestinian officials said they could set a date to apply to join the International Criminal Court (ICC) . Palestinians have vowed to join the ICC and [...]
Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif announced on Tuesday that Iran and the six world powers of P5+1 are set to resume low-level talks on Iran’s nuclear program in Geneva on Jan 15, though wide gaps remain in their positions. P5+1, consisting of the US, UK, France, Germany, Russia and China, reached a preliminary agreement [...]
The International Crimes Tribunal Bangladesh (ICTB) sentenced Islamist leader ATM Azharul Islam to death on Tuesday for war crimes committed during the 1971 War of Liberation against Pakistan. Azharul Islam is the Assistant Secretary General of the nation’s largest Islamist party, the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) . He was found guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity, [...]
Pakistani police have detained the alleged mastermind of the 2008 Mumbai attacks on abduction charges a day after a court ordered his release. Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi was detained in Pakistani custody since 2008 for heading the militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) , which was held responsible for the Mumbai attacks that killed 165 individuals. Earlier this month, [...]
Moscow’s Zamoskvoretsky District Court announced an early verdict on Tuesday, giving opposition activist Alexei Navalny a suspended sentence of 3.5 years for embezzlement, and ordering him to stay under house arrest until the sentence takes effect. The court also sentenced his brother, Oleg Navalny, to 3.5 years in prison. The Navalny brothers were charged with [...]
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Monday told US Secretary of State John Kerry that Palestine plans to submit a resolution for a UN Security Council statehood bid. The Palestine Liberation Organizaton specified that: The draft resolution calls for the resumption of negotiations to solve all final status issues by no later than 12 months after [...]
South Korea on Monday offered to resume high-level talks with North Korea, after stalled communication between the two countries resulted from the United States’ placement of blame on North Korea for a recent cyberattack on Sony Pictures Entertainment . This event has lead to increased diplomatic tensions between North and South Korea, but the South [...]
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) formally ended its war in Afghanistan on Sunday after 13 years of conflict. The quiet ceremony in Kabul was arranged in secret due to increasing Taliban strikes in the area, including suicide bombings and gun violence. On January 1 the US-led International Security Assistance Force will be replaced by [...]
The Islamic State (IS) executed 1,878 people in Syria over the past six months, reported the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) on Sunday. Of those killed, 120 were members of IS who were foreign fighters trying the leave the ranks and head home. However, the majority of those executed were civilians. The head [...]
