The Iranian government, alarmed at the declining rate of marriage in the Islamic Republic, has announced it will officially launch a free online “matchmaking service” that officials insist is not a dating site. Unlike a dating site, users have no choice in who they are paired with upon subscribing to the service.
Kurdish pop star Helly Luv tells interviewers of her new single, “Revolution,” that she refused to imitate or fabricate any of the suffering in the war against the Islamic State in Syria. Wanting to depict the realities of the battlefield for the Peshmerga and ISIS refugees, the golden-heel-clad artist filmed her music video less than two miles from the front lines with ISIS.
Days after closing the Syrian border crossing of Akcakale, announcing that there was no more humanitarian need to keep it open, thousands of refugees began bursting through the gate fleeing Islamic State violence, forcing the government to once again open their doors to migrants after taking in more than one million since 2012.
Suicide bombers attacked Chad’s capital, N’Djamena, on Monday, targeting a police training facility and leaving dozens dead. It is the first such attack of its kind on the Chadian capital, and the Boko Haram terror group is the prime suspect in orchestrating the attack, though no group has officially taken credit for the killings.
The Pentagon announced Saturday that six Guantánamo Bay detainees, all Yemenis, had been transferred out of the military facility and into Oman, bordering their native country. Among the group were two men believed to have served as bodyguards for Osama Bin Laden.
Individuals associated with the All Workers Militant Front (PAME), a communist trade union, stormed the Greek Foreign Ministry on Thursday, demanding the far-left government of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras not agree to any austerity reforms with the European Union, reforms demanded by both the EU and creditors to help Greece avoid a debt default.
Medical workers in Guinea and Sierra Leone reported 31 new cases of Ebola in the pass week, a significant increase following two months of relative decline that had the United Nations close to declaring the outbreak over. Lax monitoring rules and potential smuggling of Ebola patients past medical officials may be to blame, journalists report.
Turkey is temporarily closing at least one of its borders to Syrian refugees after accepting 1.8 million Syrian nationals fleeing the ongoing civil war there. Turkey’s deputy prime minister stated the decision was based on the fact that “there is no longer a humanitarian tragedy” on the other side of the border, though a change in that status would once again open the border.
A grocer in central Kayseri province, Turkey, is receiving national attention for changing the name of the Turkish priest plum to “imam plum,” at the behest of customers who were “uncomfortable” with the non-Islamic name.
Tindarama Aman Sirom Simbuna, the head tribal priest, or Bobolian, of Sabah, Malaysia, is demanding that European and Canadian tourists accused of causing a major earthquake by stripping at the summit of a sacred mountain offer ten buffalo to aggrieved spirits to pay for their transgression.
Facebook has begun the arduous work of shutting down Arabic-language pages created for selling ancient Syrian artifacts ransacked from areas controlled by the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL/IS). The sale of priceless antiques has become a cornerstone of the ISIS economy, as demand skyrockets for the contents of looted museums, temples, and ruins.
An Australian senator who made headlines this week by endorsing the massacre of peaceful protesters by the Chinese government in Tiananmen Square told an Australian media outlet today that he believes China has “valid” claims in the South China Sea, where Beijing has been slowly usurping large swaths of Vietnamese and Filipino waters.
With tens of thousands of migrants braving the Mediterranean and Aegean Seas for a change to live in Europe, a report from Greek newspaper Ta Nea puts the dramatic situation in perspective: 407 migrants landed in Greece, mostly traveling illegally from Turkey, in the past 24 hours.
At least one Turkish columnist, described as pro-government by the newspaper Hurriyet, is blaming an aggressive Internet strategy to smear critics of the majority AK Party for its own losses during Sunday’s parliamentary election.
urkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu has submitted his formal resignation in a procedural move necessary for Turkey to begin rebuilding its government after shocking election results that left the nation with no parliamentary ruling party. The majority AK Party to which Davutoğlu belongs must now attempt to form a coalition with at least one other minority party for Turkey’s Parliament to function.
The government of Guyana has declared Venezuela a “regional threat” after the socialist nation imposed an expansion of its “integral maritime zone” deep into Guyanese waters, just months after President Obama denounced Venezuela as a threat to America’s national security.
A 22-year-old Yemeni rapper, who has become the first high-profile female artist of her kind in the troubled Arab nation, is receiving threats. Amani Yahya fled to Saudi Arabia due to the civil war engulfing Yemen and has dedicated her artistic career to shining a light on the suffering of Yemeni women and defying cultural norms for women in the devout Muslim nation.
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, facing a tidal wave of international criticism over human rights violations and hunger strikes by his nation’s most famous prisoners of conscience, canceled a visit to the Vatican to meet with Pope Francis. Both dissidents and Vatican sources have told multiple Spanish newspapers that the cancelation, ostensibly due to a “cold,” actually occurred out of fear of being embarrassed on a public stage.
The population of Kafranbel, Syria, which has made a name for itself by spreading weekly images of homemade banners condemning President Bashar al-Assad and asking for international aid to take down his government, has made waves online this week using transgender celebrity Caitlyn, formerly Bruce, Jenner as a symbol of the kind of freedom they want for their town.
A Canadian man claiming to be one of a group of international tourists being sought for arrest in Malaysia after stripping on top of “sacred” Mount Kinabalu has responded to accusations by Malaysian politicians on Facebook that he and his peers triggered a deadly earthquake with their insolence. Responding to death threats from Malaysian believers, Emil Kaminski wrote on Facebook, “f*ck your culture.”
Turkey’s parliamentary elections on Sunday have resulted in a fragmented legislature that has significantly weakened the power of ruling Islamist AK Party, while bringing to power a record number of Kurds, Christians, women, Yazidis, and even members of the Roma minority.
The United States is considering an increase in surveillance and patrol flights near the South China Sea, following increased construction activity in the disputed islands by China and the Philippines, Vietnam, and Malaysia– all having claims in the region– sounding the alarm on the Chinese land grab.
A Persian-language news outlet reported this week that Iran has sentenced a group of 18 Christians to between one and ten years in prison each for organizing “house churches” and “propaganda against the regime.”
In April 2014, Argentina’s far-left President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner became the first head of state to engage in a one-on-one meeting with Edward Snowden, a former employee of the American National Security Agency, whose theft of prodigious amounts of classified information substantially hindered the Western War on Terror.
Relatives of missing passengers of the Eastern Star, a cruise ship that capsized on the Yangtze River on Monday night, are alleging that Chinese police intimidated, wrestled, and beat them when approached for answers on what happened to their family members and why the ship chose to travel through tornado winds.
