Sarzameen News – North Korea called US Vice-President Mike Pence “ignorant and stupid” for his warnings over a planned summit with Donald Trump, renewing a threat to cancel as the US president said the fate of the historic talks will be decided next week. Trump is due to meet his North Korean counterpart Kim Jong

BAGHDAD (AFP) – At least four people were killed and several others wounded when a suicide bomber struck a cafe in Baghdad where people had gathered after breaking their daily Ramazan fast, police said Thursday. “A suicide bomber blew up his explosive belt while he was surrounded by police near a public garden in Al-Shoala

BEIRUT (AFP) – An air strike on Syrian army positions in eastern Syria overnight killed at least 12 pro-regime fighters, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Thursday. The Britain-based monitoring group said the strike was carried out by the US-led coalition in an area south of Albu Kamal which has repeatedly been attacked by

JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israeli Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman said Thursday he would request approval from a planning committee for the building of 2,500 new homes in 30 West Bank settlements. “The 2,500 new units we’ll approve in the planning committee next week are for immediate construction in 2018,” Lieberman said in a statement, adding he

GAZA (Reuters) – Israeli aircraft destroyed a boat moored in Gaza city early on Wednesday morning, local residents said. There were no reports of casualties. The Israeli military said aircraft had struck “military targets belonging to the Hamas terror organization’s naval force” and “underground terror infrastructure” belonging to Hamas in the northern Gaza Strip. The

SEOUL (AFP) – Invited foreign journalists gathered in North Korea Wednesday to witness the slated destruction of the reclusive regime’s nuclear test site, a high profile gesture on the road to a summit with the US that Donald Trump now says might not happen. In a surprise announcement Pyongyang said earlier this month that it

NEW DELHI (AFP) – Indian police on Tuesday killed 12 demonstrators after opening fire on thousands of people demanding the closure of a copper factory due to pollution concerns, a police officer said. Protesters rampaged for hours in the southern state of Tamil Nadu calling for the closure of the plant owned by British-based mining

ANKARA (Sarzameen News) –  A Turkish court on Monday handed life sentences to 104 suspects over their involvement in the July 2016 attempted coup against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, state media reported. The former military personnel were given “aggravated life sentences” by a court in the western province of Izmir, state news agency Anadolu said,

AGRA (Sarzameen News) – India’s white-marble Taj Mahal is turning yellow and green as the 17th-century mausoleum weathers filthy air in the world’s eighth-most polluted city. One of the seven Wonders of the World, the Taj Mahal flanks a garbage-strewn river and is often enveloped by dust and smog from belching smokestacks and vehicles in

TEHRAN (AFP) – Iran s President Hassan Rouhani dismissed threats made by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Monday, saying the rest of the world no longer accepts Washington making decisions on their behalf. “Who are you to decide for Iran and the world?” Rouhani said in a statement carried by multiple Iranian news agencies.