Media Coverage

Lebanon’s judicial authorities have decided to hand over a former senior Syrian military officer under ousted President Bashar Assad to Damascus after questioning him over crimes he allegedly committed during the country’s conflict, officials said Tuesday. Maj. Gen. Adel Issa will be the first...

The Trump administration has added the head of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and one of its senior lawyers to a list of sanctioned individuals. United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio framed the widening sanctions on Tuesday as part of his campaign to “dismantle” the ICC. “The Trump...

A Syrian court on Tuesday issued a death sentence to detainee Wassim al-Assad, a cousin of long-time ruler Bashar al-Assad who was himself sentenced to death in absentia a week ago. Judge Fakhr al-Din al-Aryan said Wassim al-Assad was convicted of multiple murders and "murder accompanied by torture...

Myanmar’s military-backed government said Saturday that more than 300,000 Rohingya refugees living in camps in Bangladesh are former residents of western Rakhine state and that it will accept their return once security conditions improve. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs statement comes as the...

Venezuela says it has freed 131 people considered political prisoners, in a sign of progress for national reconciliation following the United States’ removal of former President Nicolas Maduro. Those released had been granted “alternative measures from incarceration” under the Program for Peace and...

Taliban rulers and other officials gathered at Afghanistan’s traditional Loya Jirga assembly hall on Saturday to celebrate the fifth anniversary of their return to power, touting what they described as restored stability and an end to decades of conflict. A top United Nations official, however...

More than two decades after Zimbabwe seized thousands of mainly white-owned commercial farms, some of those properties are set to change hands again. But President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s government insisted the move is not a reversal of the land redistribution programme that reshaped Zimbabwe’s...

Israeli settlers have been besieging two Palestinian families in their homes in the occupied West Bank since Sunday, with the families saying their supplies were running out and rights groups urging the authorities to step in. On Wednesday Israeli security forces were reported to have withdrawn from...

Lebanon’s parliament Wednesday passed a controversial general amnesty law, a day after a majority of legislators voted to formally abolish the death penalty. Lawmakers who backed the bill call it a beginning to correcting past overreach by the judiciary and security agencies and help reduce prison...

Lebanon's parliament abolished the death penalty, making the country the first in the Middle East to formally end the practice, replacing the sentencing with life imprisonment with aggravated hard labour. "The draft law aimed at abolishing the death penalty in Lebanon was approved after amendments...