News

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's uncle, suspected of using ill-gotten gains to build a property empire in France, has been charged with corruption, French officials say.

Rifaat al-Assad, 78, who commanded Syria's internal security forces in the 1970s and early 1980s, was charged on June 9 with receiving embezzled funds and tax fraud, a spokesman for the financial prosecutor's office said on Tuesday.

The Hamas movement on Monday applauded the Turkish government for its “official and popular efforts to ease the Gaza blockade,” following a reconciliation agreement signed between Israel and Turkey.

In a statement released after the official announcement of the agreement, Hamas, the de-facto rulers of the besieged Gaza Strip, expressed their “deep appreciation” and “gratitude” to Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan for his support for the Palestinian people. 

 Legal experts believe that legal options are available before the Election Commission of Pakistan to disqualify the prime minister and members of his family if it really wanted to decide the petitions filed by the PPP and the PTI.

The Nation talked to senior jurists who opined that the election body could take action against those who conceal their assets under different sections of Representation of the People Act, 1976.

The village of Qaa was targeted on Monday in two waves of suicide attacks that killed five people. The first group of bombers attacked before dawn and the second later at night, two of them blowing themselves up near a church.

Security officials believe Islamic State militants were behind the attack. There has been no claim of responsibility.

The International Monetary Fund said on Tuesday Albania's economic recovery should strengthen this year but warned it not to let government payment arrears grow and risk a repeat of the heavy borrowing when it came to power three years ago.

Reviewing Albania's 330 million euro ($365 million) 36-month programme signed in February 2014, an IMF team said they had reached a staff-level agreement with Albania after finding their economic programme was "broadly on track".

The Palestinian Central Elections Commission (CEC) has started preparing for local council elections in the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip to be held on Oct. 8, CEC Chairman Hanna Nasser said on Monday. 

Speaking at a news conference at the CEC offices in the West Bank city of al-Bireh, Nasser said that the commission would do everything necessary to “guarantee freedom of elections,” including the freedom to run as a candidate and to run a campaign. 

The Constitutional Court has called on President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo to immediately sign the bill on a revision to the 2015 Regional Elections Law that was approved by the House of Representative earlier this month.

The signing of bill by the President is necessary so that the court can proceed with a judicial review submitted by groups of residents, said Constitutional Court chairman Arief Hidayat in Jakarta on Monday.

Hizbullah's parliamentary bloc on Thursday reiterated the party's call for approving an electoral law based on the proportional representation system in order to ensure “fair representation.”

The first European Islamophobia Summit opens on Friday in the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo. Lasting until June 26, it will bring together European and US political, academic and civil-society leaders with the goal of finding solutions to the challenge of Islamophobia and anti-Muslim hate crimes in Europe.

Farid Hafez of Salzburg University, who is the academic advisor to the summit, told BIRN that Islamophobia had reached a worrying dimension in Europe.