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 [...]
The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals published a decision on Monday declaring that Utah’s requirement of a USD $1 million insurance policy for demonstrations violates the First Amendment of the constitution. The case was brought by two Salt Lake City environmental organizations that sought to have a parade on a state street, and Utah’s Department [...]
The citizens of the Republic of Croatia voted in the nation’s presidential election on Sunday. The first-round of voting ended in a runoff between the incumbent, Croatian President Ivo Josipovic , and Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic , an ex-ambassador and most recently NATO’s Assistant Secretary General for Public Diplomacy. With 97 percent of the votes counted , [...]
