RAS AL KHAIMAH / WAM A delegation from Ma’din Academy (Ma’dinu Ssaquafathil Islamiyya) of Kerala, India, have extended condolences to the family of Emirati firefighter Jassim Eisa Al Baloushi, who was martyred while trying to rescue the passengers of an Emirates Airline aircraft which was involved in an incident at Dubai International Airport recently. The delegation also conveyed condolences from ...

  Dubai / Emirates Business A delegation from ‘Ministry of Infrastructure Development’ visited ‘The Sustainable City’ (TSC), the region’s first fully integrated and operational sustainable community, in Dubai on Saturday. Engineer Faris Saeed, the CEO and Co-Founder of Diamond Developers, received the delegations during their visit to The Sustainable City and took them through the innovative project, while reviewing its ...

  Dubai / Emirates Business More students than ever before will collect their Cambridge International Examination results today, as entries for Cambridge qualifications continue to grow in UAE and around the world. Demand for Cambridge qualifications in UAE has soared this year with more than 100 schools making around 50,000 entries for Cambridge qualifications. In particular, Cambridge A Levels have ...

  Beirut / AFP The IS group has freed hundreds of civilians used by the extremists as human shields while retreating in northern Syria, US-backed forces and a monitor said on Saturday. A source from the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which pushed IS out of the city of Manbij this week with the aid of US-led air strikes, said that ...

  United Nations / AFP The UN Security Council has authorized the deployment of a robust force of 4,000 troops to South Sudan after heavy fighting set back efforts to end the country’s devastating war. The council adopted a US-drafted resolution that also threatened to impose an arms embargo on South Sudan if the government blocks the deployment. Eleven countries in ...

  Hua Hin / AFP Thai authorities on Saturday hunted for culprits behind a wave of bombings targeting popular holiday destinations, as businesses braced for the economic fallout from the attacks on the crucial tourism industry. The kingdom was on edge after 11 small bombs and a series of suspected arson attacks exploded across five southern provinces on Thursday night and ...

  Arbil / AFP The nephew of the governor of a key province where Iraqi forces are battling the IS group has been gunned down in the country’s north, officials said on Saturday. The shooting in Iraqi Kurdish regional capital Arbil came just hours after Nowfal Al Aqoub, the governor of Nineveh, made controversial remarks about children being fathered by IS ...

  Islamabad / AFP Six crew members of a Pakistani government helicopter which crash-landed in Afghanistan’s volatile east have been released, an official said on Saturday, after they were taken hostage by the Afghan Taliban. The crew “was released in an inter-tribe exchange on the Pakistan-Afghan border (and) arrived in Islamabad today,” foreign ministry spokesman Nafees Zakaria said in a statement. ...

  Aden / AFP Iran-backed rebels convened Yemen’s parliament on Saturday in defiance of the internationally recognised government, prompting condemnation from President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi. The session in rebel-held Sanaa was the first in almost two years, and comes after the Houthis rejected a UN peace plan and appointed a council to run the country. Parliamentary sources said 91 lawmakers in ...

  Seated in his office here, wearing neither a necktie nor a frown, Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner is remarkably relaxed for someone at the epicenter of a crisis now in its second year and with no end in sight. But, then, stress is pointless when the situation is hopeless. Besides, if you can ignore the fact that self-government is failing ...