Arab world

    Saudi women no longer need a man’s consent to carry out certain activities, local media reported on Friday, but activists said the royal order does not go far enough. Saudi Arabia has some of the world’s tightest restrictions on women, and is the only country where they are not allowed to drive. Under the guardianship system a male family member, normally the father, husband or brother, must grant permission for a woman’s study, travel and other activities. But the Arab News said a royal decree issued by King Salman ordered that women are no longer required to obtain a guardian’s consent for official services ‘unless there is a legal basis for this request’ under Islamic law. Government agencies were advised of this directive, the report said. Other Saudi media including t...

    In Iraq and Syria, ISIS is losing ground to forces backed by the U.S. And now hundreds of young women who went to marry ISIS fighters are desperate to go home to Europe. Sarah is a French citizen who traveled to Syria when she was just 18, married an ISIS fighter and had a baby. Three years later, though, Sarah's had second thoughts. Her husband was killed, she's run away from the extremists, and she wants to take her baby back to France. She told us she wants to forget everything and get her life back. She wants to start again and protect her daughter. She's one of hundreds of young, European women who joined ISIS -- some of them just teenagers -- easily lured to Syria with false promises of a romantic life in the so-called Islamic State. Along with other foreign defector...

    A conversation between a teenage girl with her father is going viral on social media platform and will make you respect him. Lamyaa, a 17-year-old Muslim girl who lives in Pennsylvania, US sent a text to her father who stays in Saudi Arabia asking him to remove the hijab. Her father replied by saying, Sweetheart that’s not my decision to make. That’s no man’s decision to make. If it’s what you feel like you want to do, go ahead, I’ll support you no matter what. Lamyaa shared the screenshot of this conversation and her dad’s comments won over the hearts of millions. BuzzFeed claims that Lamyaa was a member of the group wherein President Trump and the tense political climate was recently discussed. Trump has had his share of criticism for his stand against Muslims and Lamyaa...

    Aid agencies anticipate the emerging feminine in Somalia as the worst in the living memory. They claim that more than 6 million people in Somalia are in need for assistance and about half of them are threatened with famine for lack of food due to the deepening drought. The UN has reported that 800,000 severely malnourished children are at risk today of dying of starvation unless they get treatment fast. The country has not witnessed raining for two long years which has caused the cattle die, wells dry out and fields go barren. The 2011 famine killed around 250,000 people in Somalia, while the 1992 famine left an estimated 220,000 people died. Due to lack of food and illness, death is toll mounting in the worst-hit areas in Southern and Central Somalia. People are crowding ...

    Syrian president Bashar al-Assad never seemed cut out to be a dictator. As a young man, Assad—the second son of strongman president Hafez al-Assad was so painfully shy that in conversation, “he wouldn’t look in your eye…he covered his mouth with his hands when he talked, and spoke in a low voice,” says Ayman Abdel Nour, a university friend. Indeed, Assad generally avoided gatherings of more than handful of people, and would hunch over to make his tall frame less conspicuous. “He was a totally regular citizen; you wouldn’t guess he was the son of the president unless you knew him personally,” Abdel Nour remembers. While Bashar’s flashy older brother Bassel quickly rose through the ranks of the military, Bashar chose to study ophthalmology and took a softer posting as an arm...

    An explosion has hit a bus convoy carrying evacuees near the Syrian city of Aleppo, killing at least 39 people. It is believed that the buses involved were carrying residents evacuated from two pro-government villages in northern Syria when they were hit in Rashidin. The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says that the blast was caused by a car bomb. Thousands of people have been stuck in dozens of buses in two separate convoys on the edge of Aleppo city for more than 30 hours. They are involved in a population transfer deal but have been stranded since the agreement stalled. Thousands of people from the pro-government areas of Foua and Kfraya are stuck by the edge of the city. A short distance away thousands more from the opposition towns of Madaya and Zabadani ...

    British newsreaders, including Huw Edwards, Kay Burley, Fiona Bruce and Dermot Murnaghan have reportedly been listed as Isis targets on an Islamist website. The Isis-affiliated website even gave out the work addresses of Sky News and BBC presenters and encouraged followers to seek retribution in response to the coalition air strikes on Isis targets in the Iraqi city of Mosul. The kill list, as described by Mail Online, also carried the warning: "By Allah! We will not forget! Even after some time we will never forget! Counter-terrorism officers have been alerted to the website. Security expert Will Geddes told the Daily Star Sunday: Anyone potentially in the public eye talking about IS [Isis] needs to be reasonably concerned. Commons kay burley The website also listed furth...

    When the Syrian government carried out a gruesome chemical attack on civilians this week, many people had a question: Didn’t the Obama administration, working with Russia and international experts, destroy Syria’s chemical weapons stocks in 2014? In his State of the Union address that year, President Barack Obama declared, American diplomacy, backed by the threat of force, is why Syria’s chemical weapons are being eliminated. Months later, in July, on NBC’s Meet the Press, Secretary of State John Kerry essentially declared the mission accomplished: We struck a deal where we got 100 percent of the chemical weapons out. But, as became obvious when a Syrian attack on Tuesday killed more than 80 people, the truth was more complicated. Here is a primer on the history of Syria’s...

    Theresa May has eschewed the strict Saudi Arabian dress code for women, instead descended the steps from her plane with her hair showing. The Prime Minister touched down in capital Riyadh to meet the Crown Prince and other dignitaries without a headscarf, having earlier said she would be a role model for oppressed women in Saudi. She follows in the footsteps of other political figures including Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama, in refusing to adhere to the dress code for women. Saudi Arabia enforces a conservative dress code in public places which requires women to wear a full-length robe and cover for their hair, in keeping with other restrictive laws that include a guardianship system limiting women's movement and a ban on driving, but foreign visitors do not always fo...

    The Syrian soldiers in this dust-covered, rubbelised town don’t smile very much and their battle fatigue is obvious. They wear an assortment of T-shirts and scarves and black headbands – not unlike their Isis enemies -- and when a radio crackles the news that an officer has been killed by a mine in a neighbouring village, they show no immediate reaction. Combat troops don’t look like the men at headquarters with their neat uniforms and clip-boards and strategic explanations. But in Deir Hafer, these Syrian soldiers are lucky. Twelve hours ago, their Isis enemies – rather than fighting to the death -- suddenly fled for their lives. The crushed buildings and flattened houses of this empty provincial town on the highway to Raqqa show just what happened. The Syrian and Russian...