Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Australia to consider asylum request after home affairs minister says she would not get ‘special treatment’
Saudi teenager Rahaf Mohammed al-Qunun has been found to be a refugee by the United Nations, and the Australian government will now consider her asylum request, according to the Department of Home Affairs.
Thai authorities say 18-year-old will not be forced to return with her father to the Middle East, where she claims her family will kill her
An 18-year-old Saudi woman who barricaded herself in a Bangkok airport hotel room to prevent her forcible return to a family she claims will kill her, has been taken under the protection of the UN high commissioner for refugees in Thailand.
The Australian government said on Monday night Rahaf Mohammed al-Qunun’s situation was “deeply concerning” and it had lobbied the Thai government and the UNHCR to allow her to formally claim asylum.
Rahaf Mohammed al-Qunun says she will be killed if forced to return to abusive family
An 18-year-old Saudi woman being detained in Bangkok having fled from her family after renouncing Islam fears she will be killed if she is repatriated, according to a close friend who said the threats to her life are real.
Rahaf Mohammed al-Qunun has barricaded herself in her hotel room for fear that Thai immigration officials, who have gathered outside her door, would force her on to a plane to leave the country. Thai immigration officials have confirmed she has been denied entry to the country.
The fall of the Saudi crown prince after the Khashoggi affair is a cautionary tale for all authoritarian rulers
The trial of 11 people charged with the murder of dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi opened and was quickly adjourned in Riyadh last week. It may be that the outcome is fixed in advance. Yet that the hearing took place at all could be seen as progress of a kind. It suggests even a state as autocratic, inward-looking and undemocratic as Saudi Arabia is not immune to international opinion and can be forced, in extremis, to respect the human right to justice.
The Khashoggi affair has provided a chastening lesson for Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi crown prince, who is widely believed to have ordered the journalist’s slaying in Istanbul in October. Until then, Salman was riding high, courted by Donald Trump, lauded at home for modest social reform and feared, if not respected, across the Arab Middle East for his war of attrition in Yemen and determination to face down Iran.
Comments come as the US secretary of state embarks on a tour of Arab capitals
The US does not believe the official Saudi version of the murder of the Washington Post columnist and dissident Jamal Khashoggi is credible, a senior administration official has said.
The official was speaking to the press before the secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, embarks next week on an tour of eight Arab capitals, seeking to shore up support for US policy, and to reassure allies that the US is not abandoning the region despite Donald Trump’s order for the withdrawal of American troops from Syria.
Eleven suspects attend first court hearing following killing of journalist
A Saudi prosecutor has asked for the death penalty for five of 11 suspects held over the murder of Jamal Khashoggi at the country’s consulate in Istanbul on 2 October, the state news agency SPA reported on Thursday.
The call came during the first court hearing in the Khashoggi case, which has shredded the kingdom’s international reputation and strained its relations with Turkey, the US and many other western governments.
All-party group and lawyers concerned for eight women allegedly mistreated in Saudi Arabia prison
A cross-party group of British parliamentarians and international lawyers is requesting the right to visit eight female activists detained in Saudi Arabia, following allegations that they have been subjected to ill treatment, including torture.
The lawmakers and advocates, who have convened a detention review panel, intend to produce a detailed document on their findings, following claims that the activists, some of whom were instrumental in securing women the right to drive in Saudi Arabia, have been maltreated in Dhahban prison and denied access to lawyers or relatives.
Questions over relief effort multiply as it emerges aid officials knew for months of armed groups diverting food
The theft of food aid in Yemen by Houthi rebels might be only the tip of the iceberg, officials believe, as questions multiply over international relief efforts in the famine-ravaged country.
It has emerged that aid officials have been aware for months that armed groups – most prominently Houthi rebels in the capital, Sana’a – have been diverting food aid into the key areas they control, including by manipulating data in malnutrition surveys used by the UN.
Standup Hasan Minhaj had mocked official accounts about fate of Jamal Khashoggi
Netflix has taken down an episode of a satirical comedy show critical of Saudi Arabia in the country after officials from the kingdom complained, sparking criticism from Human Rights Watch, which said the act undermined the streaming service’s “claim to support artistic freedom”.
It comes three months after the brutal killing of the Saudi dissident and Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi – which US senators have blamed on the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman – and as the war in Yemen continues to devastate the country.
In other parts of the globe, like the Republic of Yemen, lethal forces are stalking victims whom Americans cannot always picture in complicated political scenarios we may not quickly grasp. So the average American blinks, and in that blink opportunists make deals with undemocratic, unprincipled bullies.
Two top leaders in Kandahar Province were assassinated in an attack that narrowly missed the top American commander in the country, Gen. Austin Miller.
U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday said he does not want to walk away from Saudi Arabia despite concerns about a missing Saudi journalist, as pressure mounted on the kingdom to answer Turkish allegations he was killed in Istanbul. "I do not want to do that," Trump said in an interview on Fox Business Network when asked if the United States would walk away from its Gulf ally, reiterating his hopes that Saudi leaders were not involved in the disappearance of Jamal Khashoggi.
Turkey's Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, left, talks with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo at the Esenboga Airport in Ankara, Turkey, Wednesday, Oct. 17, 2018. Pro-government newspaper Yeni Safak on Wednesday said it had obtained audio recordings of the alleged killing of Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi inside the Saudi Arabia's consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2. Turkey's Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, left, talks with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo at the Esenboga Airport in Ankara, Turkey, Wednesday, Oct. 17, 2018.
President Donald Trump speaks during an interview with The Associated Press in the Oval Office of the White House, Tuesday, Oct. 16, 2018, in Washington. President Donald Trump speaks during an interview with The Associated Press in the Oval Office of the White House, Tuesday, Oct. 16, 2018, in Washington.
A Turkish newspaper has published an account of the alleged murder of Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, as America's top diplomat arrived for talks over the Washington Post columnist's disappearance. The report by Yeni Safak adds to increasing pressure on Saudi Arabia to explain what happened to Mr Khashoggi, who vanished on October 2 while visiting the consulate to pick up paperwork he needed to get married.
Police searching the Saudi Consulate found evidence that Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi was killed there, a high-level Turkish official said Tuesday, and authorities appeared ready to also search the nearby residence of the consul general after the diplomat left the country. The comment by the Turkish official to The Associated Press further intensified the pressure on Saudi Arabia to explain what happened to Khashoggi, who vanished Oct. 2 while visiting the consulate to pick up paperwork he need to get married.
Lindsey Olin Graham Brunson release spotlights the rot in Turkish politics and judiciary Saudi Arabia, Turkey to form joint investigation into Khashoggi disappearance Democrats must end mob rule MORE on Tuesday said that he would "sanction the hell out of Saudi Arabia" in response to the disappearance of a U.S.-based journalist. Donald John Trump Key takeaways from the Arizona Senate debate Major Hollywood talent firm considering rejecting Saudi investment money: report Mattis says he thought 'nothing at all' about Trump saying he may leave administration MORE should do about the situation.
Since self-exiled Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi walked into the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul this month and vanished, his case has sparked international intrigue and outrage and put leaders of his homeland on the defensive. May 2018: Khashoggi meets Hatice Cengiz, a 36-year-old Turkish Ph.D. student, at a conference in Istanbul and she soon becomes his fiance.