Gretchen Whitmer running for governor, seeking community input
January 11th, 20170 DEARBORN — Only a few months after the Nov. 8 elections, Gretchen Whitmer, the interim Ingham County prosecutor tasked with fixing a scandal-ridden office, said she is out do the same for Michigan. Whitmer, a Democrat whose tenure in the prosecutor's office ran from July to December, filed her candidacy for governor with...
Iraqi militia threatens ISIS’ supply route to Syria
November 18th, 20160 BAGHDAD — Iraqi militias said on Wednesday they had driven ISIS fighters from an air base west of Mosul, a victory which would threaten the group's supply route from Syria to its last major stronghold in Iraq. "The airport of Tal Afar has been liberated," Yusif al-Kallabi, a spokesman for Popular Mobilisation, a coalition of mainly...
UN: Arab Spring cost more than $600 billion worth of growth
November 17th, 20160 NEW YORK — A new report from the United Nations suggests that the turmoil in the years since 2010 has left a heavy economic imprint in the Arab region — in particular, leading to a net loss of $613.8 billion in economic activity, or about 6 percent of gross domestic product from 2011 to 2015. The commission noted that it was not...
Turkey aims to fully secure borders early next year with Syria campaign
November 17th, 20160 ANKRA — Turkey aims to have fully secured its borders in the first half of next year, Defence Minister Fikri Isik said on Thursday, as Turkish-backed forces pursue a campaign to clear ISIS and Kurdish fighters from a strip of northern Syria. NATO member Turkey sent tanks, warplanes and artillery into Syria in August in support of...
Yemen’s Houthis say they want to end war, form unity government
November 17th, 20160 HODEIDAH — Yemen's Houthi group said on Wednesday it was ready to stop fighting and join a national unity government, raising hopes of a resolution to a conflict that has killed more than 10,000 people. The announcement appeared to confirm the details of a deal set out by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry a day earlier that he said...
British woman faces jail time in Dubai for reporting gang rape
November 16th, 20160 DUBAI - A British woman who was allegedly gang-raped by two men in Dubai faces jail after police accused her of "extra marital sex". The 25 year old claims she was attacked by fellow British tourists in October while on holiday in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).After she went to the authorities, she was arrested and charged with having...
Chef says he was beaten by Muslim men because he ‘looks like Trump’
November 15th, 20160 SWEDEN - While Muslims are facing a wave of attacks and insults as a result of Trump's election in the U.S., one man in Sweden claims the reverse effect happened to him. A Swedish chef was reportedly assaulted by three Muslim men who punched and kicked him in the face and head, sending him to the emergency room. Writing...
Iraqi forces preparing advance on south Mosul
November 11th, 20160 BAGHDAD — Iraqi security forces are preparing to advance toward Mosul airport on the city's southern edge to increase pressure on ISIS militants fighting troops who breached their eastern defenses, officers said on Thursday. The rapid response forces, part of a coalition seeking to crush the terrorists in the largest city under...
Israeli minister: Trump’s victory ends prospects of Palestinian state
November 11th, 20160 Donald Trump's election victory means the Palestinian people will never have a state of their own, right-wing Israeli government education minister Naftali Bennett has said. He hailed the demise of a "two-state solution" in the Middle East. Bennett is an advocate of expanding Jewish illegal settlements in the West Bank, which...
U.N. says rations run out in east Aleppo, hopes for aid deal
November 11th, 20160 UNITED NATIONS — Aid workers in eastern Aleppo were distributing the last available food rations on Thursday as the quarter of a million people besieged in the Syrian city entered what is expected to be a cruel winter, U.N. humanitarian adviser Jan Egeland said. Speaking in Geneva, Egeland said he was hopeful of a deal on a...
Sandstorm hindering Raqqa offensive
November 11th, 20160 DAMASCUS — A U.S.-backed advance on Raqqa, ISIS de facto capital in Raqqa, was being hampered by a sandstorm on Thursday, a commander of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said. "The situation is dangerous today because there is no visibility due to a desert sandstorm," the commander said, speaking on condition of anonymity. "We...
Anxious world leaders seek clarity on Trump policies
November 11th, 20160 WASHINGTON — World leaders offered to work with Donald Trump when he takes over as U.S. president, but expressed anxiety over how he will handle problems from the Middle East to an assertive Russia and whether he will carry out a number of campaign threats. Several authoritarian and right-wing leaders hailed the billionaire...
Royal Jordanian offering last minute cheap flights to U.S. “in case Trump wins”
November 8th, 20160 JORDAN - Just in case Donald Trump wins Tuesday's US presidential election, a tongue-in-cheek Royal Jordanian airlines advertisement is offering last minute flights to Muslims in case they are subject to a ban from entering the US. In a Twitter ad, Jordan's flag carrier airline wrote, "Just in case he wins...Travel to the US while...
Saudi Arabia shows signs of accepting U.N. plan for Yemen
November 3rd, 20160 SANAA — Diplomats promoting a U.N. plan to end Yemen's war detect cautious support for its ideas from Saudi Arabia, raising hopes the proposals might unlock stalled efforts to end the 19-month-old conflict and a worsening humanitarian disaster. The kingdom leads a mostly Gulf Arab military alliance which has launched thousands of...
Rebels step up Aleppo offensive, clash with each other
November 3rd, 20160 DAMASCUS — Syrian insurgents stepped up a week-long offensive on government-held areas in the city of Aleppo on Thursday, detonating three car bombs and firing shells which killed at least a dozen civilians, state media and a monitor said. Rebel groups detonated three large car bombs near pro-government forces on the western edge of......
ISIS leader says ‘no retreat’ from Mosul, as Iraqi troops close in
Iraq's flag is seen during a sand storm in Bartilla, east of Mosul, Iraq Nov. 1MOSUL — ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi told his followers on Thursday there could be no retreat in a "total war" against the forces arrayed against them, as advancing soldiers battled the terrorists inside their northern Iraqi stronghold. Expressing...Protests at fishmonger’s death shake Moroccan monarchy
RABAT — Grainy video images and the screams of a young fishmonger who was crushed to death in a garbage truck while trying to stop police destroying his stock have shocked Moroccans and brought thousands on to the streets to protest. Five years after pro-democracy protests shook Morocco, this week's unrest is a reminder of pent-up......
Lebanon’s Aoun elected president, ending 29-month vacuum
BEIRUT - The Lebanese parliament elected former army commander Michel Aoun as president on Monday, ending a 29-month presidential vacuum as part of a political deal that is expected to make Sunni Muslim leader Saad al-Hariri prime minister. Aoun, who is in his 80s, secured the presidency by winning the support of 83 MPs, well above...“Afghan girl” in 1985 National Geographic detained for fake identity cards
PAKISTAN- The Afghan woman, once a 12-year-old green-eyed girl celebrated on National Geographic magazine’s cover in 1985, has been arrested in Pakistan for fraudulent identity papers.Sharbat Gula could be fined and could possibly face up to 14 years in prison. Pakistani officials said she was detained by...U.N. vows to press on with securing Aleppo evacuation operation
UNITED NATIONS — The United Nations vowed on Thursday to press ahead in securing medical evacuations of hundreds of sick and wounded from the Syrian city of Aleppo and demanded that the warring sides drop their conditions.The United Nations aborted plans at the weekend to evacuate patients from rebel-held east Aleppo, which...Erdogan says Turkish offensive will push on for Raqqa
ANKARA — Turkey's military operation in northern Syria will target the town of Manbij, recently liberated from ISIS by Kurdish-led forces, and the terrorists' stronghold of Raqqa, President Tayyip Erdogan said on Thursday.Syrian rebels, backed by Turkish warplanes, tanks and artillery, launched an operation dubbed "Euphrates......
U.N. peace plan for Yemen sidelines exiled president to symbolic role
UNITED NATIONS — A U.N. peace proposal to end a 19-month war in Yemen appears aimed at sidelining exiled President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi and setting up a government of less divisive figures, according to a copy seen by Reuters.Hadi fled the armed advance of the Houthi movement in March 2015 and has been in neighboring Saudi Arabia...Study: Iraqis are world’s most generous to strangers
LONDON — Although torn by civil war, Iraq is the world's most generous country towards strangers in need, according to a new global index of charitable giving.Eighty one percent of Iraqis reported helping someone they didn't know in the previous month, in a global poll commissioned by the Charities Aid Foundation (CAF).For the first......
Violence flares in Turkey’s southeast after Kurdish mayors’ arrest
ANKARA — Five members of Turkey's security forces and five Kurdish militants were killed on Thursday in clashes in the southeast where unrest has flared since the arrest this week of two popular mayors.Two soldiers were killed in a clash near Hani, a town outside Diyarbakir, the region's biggest city, security sources said....Villagers forced to walk to Mosul as human shields for ISIS
ISIS fighters forced women, children and the elderly to walk alongside them for days as human shields to cover their retreat to Mosul, separating out older boys and fighting-aged men along the way for an unknown fate, villagers said.Reuters spoke to a woman and an elderly man inside the ISIS-held city, who were part of group of......