Reuters: A group of former agents from Malaysia’s foreign intelligence agency, including its chief, are being investigated for alleged misappropriation of government funds, a senior Malaysian anti-graft official said on Thursday. The probe by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) is the latest in a widening crackdown by Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad’s government on corruption allegedly…
Tasmiah Nuhiya Ahmed, Executive Editor, The New York Times, Bangladesh National Section: Bangladesh Passengers’ Welfare Association (BPWA) estimated that a total of 200 people were killed and 754 others injured in accidents on roads, waterways and railways across the country during the Eid ul Fitr holidays in 2018. The number of casualties came from 127…
AFP: It was a disaster that left wildlife lovers around the globe appalled and baffled. Eleven of Kenya’s precious black rhinos were transferred to a new home in what was supposed to be a routine operation in a country fabled for its conservation.So how did all of them end up dead? The primary cause of…
Reuters: As many as 85 villages were flooded in Myanmar after a dam failed, unleashing waters that blocked a major highway and forced more than 63,000 people from their homes, a state-run newspaper said on Thursday. The disaster spotlights safety concerns about dams in Southeast Asia after last month’s collapse of a hydroelectric dam in…
Reuters: Saudi Arabia has stressed to Russia the need for a political solution to the Syria conflict, the foreign minister said on Wednesday. Speaking at a joint press conference in Moscow with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Adel Al-Jubeir said they had held talks on a range of issues in the Middle East. Al-Jubeir said…
VOA News: Drums pounded hard as a circle of men, their shoulder-length hair whirling through the air, spun their heads in a trance. In the middle of the circle, other men pierced their heads with knives and drove skewers in their mouths as hundreds of others chanted, “Muhammad the savior will wash off the heart’s…
BBC: On the train to visit one of the last places in Britain that burns coal for electricity, I pass three solar farms soaking up sunshine. I also pass a coal plant called Eggborough that has all but ceased operations. No steam rises from its giant cooling towers. It will shut in September. But the…
Rosebell Kagumire /Al jazeera Can an artist-turned-politician deliver the final blow that brings down Museveni’s rule in Uganda? After close to two weeks of tensions in Uganda, a court in the northern town of Gulu granted bail to four opposition legislators including MP Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu, fondly known by his stage name Bobi Wine. In…
Reuters: The United Nations called on Russia, Iran and Turkey on Thursday to forestall a battle in Syria’s Idlib province which would affect millions of civilians and could see both sides using chlorine as a chemical weapon. U.N. Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura told reporters that there was a high concentration of foreign fighters in…
Reuters: The European Union’s chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier said on Thursday the bloc must prepare for a no-deal Brexit, even if its goal was an orderly exit. The EU needed to be well prepared for everything, Barnier said, telling German broadcaster Deutschlandfunk: “That includes the no-deal scenario.” He said the issue of the Irish…