Hate speech against minorities, including Muslims and Christians, in India rose by 13 per cent in 2025, with most incidents occurring in states governed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), a Washington-based research group said on Tuesday. India Hate Lab documented 1,318 instances of what it called hate speech in…
GENEVA: Sri Lankan forces used sexual violence against minority Tamils during the island’s decades-long separatist war, and victims still await justice 17 years after the fighting ended, a UN report said on Tuesday. Troops crushed the separatists following a no-holds-barred offensive and declared an end to the war by May 2009. The spectacular military success…
SEOUL: A South Korean judge sentenced former president Yoon Suk Yeol on Friday to five years in prison for obstructing justice and other crimes linked to his disastrous martial law declaration and in its chaotic aftermath. It is the first in a series of verdicts for the disgraced ex-leader, whose brief suspension of civilian rule in South…
WASHINGTON: US Central Intelligence Agency head John Ratcliffe travelled to Venezuela on Thursday and met leader Delcy Rodriguez, a US administration official said, in the highest-level American visit since the fall of Nicolas Maduro. President Donald Trump sent the spy chief to Caracas for a meeting that lasted approximately two hours, US sources said, less…
ALEPPO: A US-led coalition intervened on Friday to reduce tensions between Syria’s government and Kurdish forces, with Damascus determined to expel them from an area in the country’s north. After driving Kurdish forces from Aleppo last week, the Syrian army deployed reinforcements near the Kurdish-controlled Deir Hafer, some 50 kilometres east of the city, ordering…
Protests in Iran have subsided after a crackdown by security forces amid an internet blackout, monitors said Friday, a week after the start of the largest demonstrations in years challenging the country’s government. Reza Pahlavi, the US-based son of Iran’s late shah, however, said he was confident the Islamic republic would fall and called…
Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar expressed his hope for peace and stability in Iran on Saturday, the Foreign Office (FO) said. According to a post by the FO on X, Dar spoke with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi in a phone call in which the two diplomats discussed the current situation in…
The United States has announced the launch of the second phase of President Donald Trump’s 20-point peace plan for Gaza, shifting focus from ceasefire implementation to demilitarisation, technocratic governance and reconstruction. In a social media post, US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff said that the high-profile ‘Board of Peace’ unveiled on Friday was a move “from ceasefire to…
London: The World Kashmir Freedom Movement (WKFM) has made an urgent appeal to the United Nations, the UK government and the European Union Council, seeking intervention for Kashmiri female political prisoners allegedly illegally detained by the Indian government. In a letter addressed to international bodies, WKFM President Dr Muzzammil Ayyub Thakur highlighted the continued detention…
US veto power prevents accountability at UN Security Council. US cites self-defence under UN Charter Article 51. Legal experts argue US operation violated international law. UNITED NATIONS: The legality of the US capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro will be under the spotlight at the United Nations on Monday, but Washington is unlikely to face…