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Pakistan’s former President Pervez Musharraf, a key U.S. ally in the campaign against al Qaeda following the militant group’s Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, died in Dubai on Sunday after a prolonged illness. He was 79. Musharraf, a former four-star general who seized power after a 1999 military coup, died in …

Russia has warned that a Ukraine’s attack on Crimea will trigger Moscow to retaliate and use ‘weapons of any kind’ to defend itself. Deputy Chairman of the Russian Security Council Dmitry Medvedev wrote on his Twitter page that “Crimea is Russia. The attack on Crimea is an attack on Russia …

Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has pardoned or commuted the sentences of a large number of Iranian prisoners arrested during the recent riots in the country. The Leader on Sunday agreed to a request by Iran’s Judiciary Chief Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei to pardon or reduce the sentences of …

Israeli forces have arrested nearly two dozen Palestinians, among them a senior member of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement, in raids across the occupied West Bank. Palestinian Prisoner’s Media Office reported Sunday that the occupation troops had detained Khader Adnan in his hometown of Arraba near the city of Jenin. …

Beijing claimed the right to retaliate after the Pentagon shot down what it called a “spy balloon” China has blasted US President Joe Biden’s decision on Saturday to scramble an advanced F-22 stealth fighter jet to bring down a Chinese high-altitude balloon – after it traversed the United States – …

Turkish police said they had not found evidence of any concrete threat to foreigners after detaining 15 ISIS suspects accused of targeting consulates and non-Muslim houses of worship, state media reported on Sunday. Last week, several European consulates in Istanbul were shut citing “security reasons” and several Western states warned …

Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto has lashed out at the US ambassador to Budapest for meddling in the country’s internal affairs over its support for Russia, saying, “Nobody can tell us from the outside how to live.” Szijjarto issued the scathing rebuke on Thursday after David Pressman, who has represented …

Pakistan has blocked Wikipedia after the crowd-sourced online encyclopedia refused to remove content deemed to be “blasphemous” in the Muslim-majority nation. Wikipedia had been blocked across the country on Friday “after it failed to respond to our repeated correspondence over the removal of the blasphemous content and meet the deadline,” …

East African leaders were holding a regional summit in Burundi on Saturday to discuss ways of calming the raging conflict in eastern DR Congo. According to Press TV, the talks are hosted by the seven-nation East Africa Community, which is leading mediation efforts to end the fighting in the restive …

The United States is actively working to discourage countries willing to normalize relations with Syria, according to a report. The report, based on the summary of a recent UN Security Council meeting on Syria seen by al-Akhbar, shows that Washington has tried to draw “red lines” for countries seeking to normalize with Syria, return …

Israeli forces have shot and martyred a young Palestinian man south of Nablus in the occupied West Bank, bringing the number of Palestinian fatalities from the Israeli violence this year to 36. The Palestinian Red Crescent announced on Friday that Abdullah Samih, 25, attained martyrdom a few minutes after being critically …

At least thirteen Palestinians have been injured after Israeli military forces stormed a refugee camp in the West Bank, amid fears that the situation across the Occupied Territories is going to implode in the near future. The official Palestinian news agency WAFA reported that Israeli troops broke into Aqbat Jabr …

Beijing has warned against speculation and efforts to hype up the story China is a responsible nation and doesn’t violate the airspace of other countries, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning has said following speculation that a spy balloon spotted over the US had been launched by Beijing. The Chinese …

The Palestinian Hamas resistance movement has condemned in the strongest terms the decision by Sudan’s foreign ministry to move forward towards normalizing relations with Israel during talks with visiting foreign minister Eli Cohen in Khartoum, calling upon officials in the North African country to reverse the measure. “Hamas believes that …

TOP HEADLINES · Air raid sirens rang out in Kyiv and across Ukraine before the start of a summit bringing together senior Ukrainian officials and EU representatives. · EU chief Charles Michel arrived in Kyiv to join a summit with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and vowed support for Ukraine’s bid …

Half a million people from across the public sector came out on the streets or joined picket lines in England and Wales demanding better pay and conditions in what has been described as the biggest coordinated industrial action in decades. Among those on the streets are some 300,000 teachers on …

The CIA also quickly disavowed explosive claims by the Swiss-German paper of record President Joe Biden allegedly sent CIA chief William Burns on a secret mission to Moscow and Kyiv in mid-January, according to a Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NNZ) report on Wednesday. The White House and CIA addressed the allegations …

US official told reporters the military was prepared to shoot the balloon down but was deterred by potential for harm. A suspected Chinese surveillance balloon has been flying over the United States for a couple of days but the Pentagon has decided not to shoot it down for fear of …

Officials have blamed a suicide bombing that killed 100 people inside a mosque at a police and government compound in northwest Pakistan on a “security lapse.” The blast, which ripped through a mosque inside a major police facility in the city of Peshawar, was one of the deadliest attacks on …

Pope Francis landed in Democratic Republic of Congo on Tuesday for a visit that will highlight the human cost of decades of conflict in the vast central African country, which is rich in minerals but where millions are displaced and live in poverty. Francis is the first pope to visit …