June, 2016

• 26 June

  55 killed in Yemen fighting

    SANAA / AP Yemeni security and health officials say two days of fierce fighting between Shiite rebels and forces loyal to the internationally recognized government has killed at least 55 people from both sides. The officials said Sunday that 70 people were wounded in the fighting over the past 48 hours in the provinces of Taiz, Bayda and Marib. ...

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• 26 June

  Russian, regime raids kill 82 in IS-held east Syria

    BEIRUT / AFP At least 82 people including 58 civilians were killed in Russian and regime air strikes on an IS group-held area of eastern Syria, a monitor said Sunday in a new toll. “Three Russian and Syrian regime air raids on the region of Al-Quriyah, southeast of Deir Ezzor city, killed 58 civilians,” the Syrian Observatory for Human ...

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• 26 June

  Iran says five rebels killed in Kurdish region

  Tehran / AFP Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards said it killed five armed rebels in recent clashes along its border with Iraqi Kurdistan, state media reported. A statement from the Guards, published late Saturday by official news agency IRNA, said “five armed rebels linked to counter-revolutionary groups” were killed on Friday night. It did not give the name of the rebel ...

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• 26 June

  Scotland starts toward independence vote

  

    Bloomberg Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said her government started work on legislation for a new referendum on independence after the UK. as a whole decided to quit the European Union while Scotland voted to remain. Speaking after an emergency meeting of her cabinet in Edinburgh on Saturday, Sturgeon said she will also be seeking talks with European leaders ...

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• 26 June

  China NSG stance irks India

    NEW DELHI / AP India expressed disappointment on Sunday with China for raising procedural hurdles to the South Asian country joining the 48-nation group controlling access to sensitive nuclear technology. Its membership application was not approved at the Nuclear Suppliers Group meeting last week in Seoul, South Korea, and External Affairs Ministry spokesman Vikas Swarup said that from India’s ...

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• 26 June

  Soup kitchen offers respite to Gaza’s hungry

  

    Gaza City / AFP In her modest home in the Gaza Strip, Sahar Sherif’s family watches as she ladles out a broth of meat and vegetables for a rare heart-warming meal. For just a month of the year, a soup kitchen in the Palestinian enclave is offering struggling families like Sherif’s a welcome break from daily worries about where ...

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• 26 June

  Turkey: Pope’s genocide remarks bears stamp of ‘Crusades mentality’

    Ankara / AFP Turkey has condemned as “very unfortunate” Pope Francis’s declaration that the mass killings of Armenians a century ago by Ottoman forces amounted to a genocide, saying it bore traces of “the mentality of the Crusades.” “It is not an objective statement that conforms with reality,” Deputy Prime Minister Nurettin Canlikli said late on Saturday, quoted by ...

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• 26 June

  Some Brexit consequences

  

    WASHINGTON On June 1, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development issued its latest economic forecasts. In 2016, it predicted that the world economy would grow 3 percent, the United Kingdom 1.7 percent and the euro area (the 19 countries using the euro) 1.6 percent. We don’t know how these figures will now be revised, but we do know ...

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• 26 June

  Expanded Panama Canal scripts maritime history

    Sunday was the day for festivities and pride in Panama as people there marked the inauguration of newly expanded multibillion dollar Panama Canal that will link the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans and boost the regional and international trade. Currently, some 5 percent of global maritime commercial traffic uses this strategic waterway, which provides a valuable shortcut between North ...

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• 26 June

  Seven lessons from the UK’s departure

    Mohamed A. El-Erian As global financial markets convulse in response to British citizens voting to leave the European Union, the stunning outcome of the U.K.’s referendum provides more questions than answers. As discussed on Monday, the heightened uncertainty, fueled by sudden institutional instability now compounding long-standing economic fragility and financial fluidity, is likely to cause an unprecedented mix of ...

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