On Monday, Russia brought to an end its military exercises near the Ukrainian border, days ahead of a vital Presidential vote in Ukraine which aims to end the crisis in the country. The office of Russian President Vladimir Putin said that he had ordered several thousand Russian soldiers stationed near the Ukrainian border to return to their barracks as the …

The Syrian Air Defense Chief General Hussein Ishaq was killed on Sunday in a military offensive against rebels near Damascus. General Ishaq was wounded on Saturday during the military’s assault on the town Mleiha to the east of Damascus, and succumbed to his wounds on Sunday. The military offensive aims to increase the area near the capital under the President’s …

Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights on Monday said that the death toll in war-stricken Syria has exceeded an astounding 160,000. The activist group said that it has documented exactly 162,402 deaths since the uprising began in March 2011. The number includes rebels, civilians, members of the military, members of militia like the Lebanese Hezbollah and foreign fighters involved in …

On Sunday, international advocacy group Human Rights Watch said that Palestinian Authorities are yet to take action and investigate on an assault by Palestinian security forces in April, having brought charges against the four victims. The organization said that several witness had given consistent accounts of police using disproportionate and unnecessary force against two men involved in a peaceful protest …

The UN Security Council is expected to put to vote next week a resolution which would call Syria to the International Criminal Court; the measure, however, will likely fail due to opposition from China and Russia. The resolution was drafted by France and aims to “send a message that there is accountability for the crimes committed in Syria”. According to …

The fourth round of nuclear talks between six world powers and Iran came to an end on Friday, with both sides arguing that major hurdles remained ahead of the July 20th deadline for an accord. Abbas Araqchi, the chief nuclear negotiator for Iran, said on state television that “no tangible progress” was made at the negotiations in Vienna as the …

On Friday, Narendra Modi dominated the polls to win the general elections in India, utterly trouncing the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty from power in the center, in a major political shift in the country. Modi’s landslide victory, the largest margin of victory in general elections in India for the past thirty years, was welcomed by a blistering rally in Indian stock markets …

BY Nehad Ismail Can we trust the smiling Rouhani over Iran’s nuclear intentions? The Iranian Opposition exposes the regime’s duplicity, writes Nehad Ismail In 2006 the Iranian leadership announced the successful enrichment of uranium. The International Atomic Energy Authority (IAEA) put the issue of Iran’s nuclear program before the UN Security Council. The UN Security Council passed several resolutions urging …

On Wednesday, suspected al-Qaeda forces simultaneously struck at two army positions in South Yemen, with the subsequent clashes resulting in the deaths of 13 insurgents, 9 army soldiers and an aide to the Defense Minister. Only five days ago, Defense Minister Mohamed Nasser Ahmad and two other security officers barely escaped an ambush as they were returning from the south. …

On Thursday, New-York based Human Rights Watch urged Saudi Arabia to release two citizens held in the kingdom without trial for two years for their religious beliefs. 33-year-old Sultan al-Anzi and 35-year-old Saud al-Anzi had converted to the Ahmadiyya Muslim religious group, an offshoot if Islam which is banned in the uber-conservative Sunni kingdom. The two were arrested and jailed …