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On Monday, US President Barack Obama announced that US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel resigned from his post, with the White House coming under fire for its perceived fumbling of the response to extremist group Islamic State (IS). Hagel was at the White House during Obama’s announcement confirming his departure. The former Republican senator and 68-year-old Vietnam War veteran was on …

Monitoring group Syrian Observatory for Human Rights on Monday said that Kurdish fighters battling extremists from Islamic State (IS) were able to gain ground in the Syrian border town Kobane overnight. The town has become a symbolic battleground in the fight against the IS, with the global coalition launching airstrikes almost every day to aid the Kurdish fighters. According to …

Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson was re-elected on Saturday, soundly beating main rival Kirk LaPointe despite signs late in the campaign that his bid for a third term in office was in trouble. Robertson was first elected in 2008 and is best known for being Vancouver’s public face in the 2010 Winter Olympics. Robertson’s Vision Vancouver party was the clear front-runner …

Extremist group Islamic State (IS) on Thursday claimed a suicide car bomb attack in the city of Arbil, the usually secure capital of the autonomous Kurdish region in Iraq. In an online statement, the IS boasted that it had “breached all the security checkpoints of the agent Kurdistan government and reached the heart of the city of Arbil”. It also …

E-commerce and video game markets are growing “exponentially” across North Africa and the Middle East, driven by new youth-produced content and the mobile revolution, a new study suggested. The gaming market in the region is expected to almost triple its size, and expected to hit $4.4 billion in 2022 from $1.6 billion in 2014, a study conducted by Abu Dhabi …

Local Iranian media on Thursday reported that an Iranian-Canadian journalist, Hossein Derakhshan, dubbed “the blogfather” was freed from prison after being handed a 19 year jail term for traveling to Israel. Derakhshan was arrested in November 2008 after his visit to Israel, Iran’s arch-foe, using his Canadian passport, on what he called a trip to breed understanding between Israelis and …

By Ramzy Baroud When a journalist tries to do a historian’s job, the outcome can be quite interesting. Using history as a side note in a brief news report or political analysis oftentimes does more harm than good. Now imagine if that journalist was not dependable to begin with, even more than it being “interesting”, the outcome runs the risk …

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan expressed his frustration at the US and its fellow member nations in the coalition fighting against extremist group Islamic State (IS), lamenting on Wednesday that they didn’t respond to conditions set for by Turkey that allows it to play a larger role in coalition. The timing of his complaint seems especially curious, since US special …

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Wednesday forewarned against tackling the problem of violent extremism only through military means and called on government to avoid counter-terrorism measures which could lead to human rights abuses. At a special meeting of the UN Security Council on counter-terrorism, Ban said that the UN was looking at different ways in which it can address …

The UAE on Wednesday said that it was dedicated to improving the protection of human rights, and criticized Amnesty International for its “one sided and inaccurate” accusations. “The UAE will continue its work to strengthen the protection of human rights. There is no freedom here: Silencing dissent in the UAE”, the foreign ministry said, referring to the rights watchdog’s report …