TEHRAN – Catalan authorities will not follow orders from Madrid, but will only listen to the will of the Catalan people, Catalonia’s Foreign Affairs spokesman said. All institutions, including police, need to follow instructions from the democratically-elected Catalan government, the region’s foreign affairs spokesman, Raul Romeva, told BBC radio. According to the official, EU democracy […]

Nearly 450,000 Rohingya refugee children are in urgent need of assistance and the scale of the humanitarian crisis in Myanmar continues to become more dire, according to a new report from the International Rescue Committee.Up to 300,000 more Rohingya are expected to flee the violence in Myanmar over the coming weeks, seeking shelter in refugee […]

The Spanish government decided on Saturday to sack the secessionist leadership of Catalonia and force the region into a new election, saying it had to take the unprecedented step to prevent the region pushing ahead with independence.The plan, which still requires the approval of the upper house senate, seeks to resolve Spain’s worst political crisis […]

The self-styled Islamic State terrorist group claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing at a Shia mosque in the capital as Afghan officials on Saturday raised the number of casualties from the attack to at least 39 dead and at least 41 wounded.In a statement on its website late Friday, IS said claimed its fighter “detonated […]

A suicide attacker detonated a car full of explosives on Saturday outside Afghanistan’s top military training center in Kabul, killing at least 15 soldiers, a military spokesman said.Taliban insurgents claimed responsibility for the attack.Coming after a particularly deadly week for Afghanistan’s security forces, it was the second major attack in the capital in 24 hours […]

The World Health Organization (WHO) should overturn its decision to appoint of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe as a goodwill ambassador, global health leaders said on Saturday, describing the move as unjustifiable and wrong. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus announced the appointment at a high-level meeting on non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in Uruguay on Wednesday, Reuters reported. […]

Japanese voters will head to the polls today (Sunday)  for snap general elections, a year ahead of schedule.Prime Minister Shinzo Abe dissolved the lower house of parliament and called for fresh polls last month to renew his mandate to cope with a “national crisis” amid nuclear tensions with North Korea.A low voter turnout is expected […]

At least 54 Egyptian police officers were killed in an ambush by militants near the Bahariya oasis in the country’s Western Desert, security and medical sources said Saturday, in a rare flare-up outside the Sinai Peninsula.The interior ministry said security forces hunting down militants in the region were attacked late Friday on a road to […]

Saudi Arabia and Iraq convened a new joint body to coordinate their fight against the self-styled Islamic State terrorist group and on rebuilding Iraqi territory wrested from the group, Saudi King Salman and Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said in Riyadh on Sunday. The rare senior meeting, signaling a thaw between states that have been […]

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe swept to a resounding victory in a snap election on Sunday, winning a mandate to harden his already hawkish stance on North Korea and reenergize the world’s number-three economy. Abe’s conservative coalition was on track to win 311 seats in the 465-seat parliament, according to a projection published by private […]