The UN on Thursday requested for $8.4 billion so that it can provide emergency aid and more permanent help to almost 18 million people in Syria and its neighbors affected by the Syrian civil war. The appeal includes funding for shelter, food, humanitarian aid and developmental support. UN agencies had initially asked for$2.9 billion to help 12.2 million people in …

By Ramzy Baroud America’s ruling elites are blatant in their intentions of maintaining “white privilege” at home and economic dominance by military means abroad. Their “democracy” in both of these regions is a ruse, and it is yet to deliver any degree of social justice and equality to the millions of disadvantaged Americans which are comprised mostly of black and …

By Max Fisher There’s a certain ritual that each and every one of the world’s billion-plus Muslims, especially those living in Western countries, is expected to go through immediately following any incident of violence involving a Muslim perpetrator. It’s a ritual that is continuing now with the Sydney hostage crisis, in which a deranged self-styled sheikh named Man Haron Monis …

An Iranian-born gunman and two hostages were killed as heavily armed Australian police ended the day-long hostage situation created by the gunman on Tuesday. The man, described by Australian media as a “self-styled sheikh”, took 17 people hostage at a central Sydney café before he was taken down by the police. Police hurled percussion grenades before opening fire, after several …

Since May, over 22 people have left Switzerland to fight abroad as foreign militants, including eight in the past two weeks, Switzerland’s Federal Intelligence Service (FIS), said on Monday. According to the agency, 61 Swiss nationals have left to fight overseas since 2001, including 37 who left to Iraq and Syria, and 25 to Somalia, Yemen, Pakistan and Afghanistan. The …

Critics and defenders of a US senate report on CIA “torture” programs took turns to tear each other apart over the report’s findings on the “war on terror”, opening fresh political wounds. On Sunday, former US vice president Dick Cheney vehemently defended the CIA program and lauded CIA operatives as heroes. “I’m perfectly comfortable that they should be praised, they …

After slamming the Canadian government for not doing enough to help Syrian refugees, critics took Conservatives to task for being selective in picking the refugees who will get asylum. Parliamentary secretary for the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration Costas Menegakis faced several questions from the New Democratic Party (NDP) in the House of Commons on Friday – Menegakis was unrepentant …

Syrian Hazem Sharif was declared the winner of singing contest “Arab Idol” for 2014 on Saturday’s grand finale in Beirut. The audience broke into cheers and applause, chanting “Syria! Syria!” and “Hazem!” when the 21-year-old was declared by judges Ahlam, from the UAE, Lebanese singers Wael Kfouri and Nancy Ajram and Hassan Al Shafe’ei, an Egyptian music production expert, as …

Filmmaker Marcel Ophuls, whose four-and-a-half-hour documentary “The Sorrow and the Pity” on the Nazi occupation of France was banned on French television, is looking to crowd-fund his newest film “Unpleasant Truths” on the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory. The 87-year-old, who is collaborating with Israeli filmmaker Eval Sivan on the film, has appealed for $62,000 on KissKissBankBank, a French crowd-funding …

A new report published by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives and the Poverty and Human Rights Centre has suggested that the absence of a human rights commission in British Columbia has led to a “gaping hole” in the province’s human rights protection system. In “Strengthening Human Rights”, authors Gwen Brodsky and Shelagh Day note that British Columbia is the …