Exclusive to The Middle East Online Edited by Nelly Tawil The North Korean coast guard seized a Russian yacht sailed by five crewmembers 130 km off the coast of North Korea’s economic zone on Friday. North Korean authorities allowed the yacht to continue its journey two days after detaining it and its passengers in coastal waters, Russian media reported on ...

EDITED BY KALAHAN DENG Maria Toorpakai grew up in Waziristan, which she calls one of the “most dangerous places on earth.” Home to the Taliban, it is a place where girls often don’t go to school and extremists denounce women’s sports for being un-Islamic. “I could feel that girls are not equally treated as boys. They are enslaved,” Toorpakai, who ...

EDITED BY KALAHAN DENG The most striking thing about Joseph Mothibedi is his voice — it is raspy, a metallic whisper. It’s the sound of a man slowly dying. His thin fingers trembling, Mothibedi leans over his simple hot plate and puts a tea kettle on the boil. The 58-year-old former gold miner looks reduced in his old blue work ...

EDITED BY KALAHAN DENG Angry mourners carry the coffin of a victim of an ISIS-claimed suicide attack in the southern Iraqi city of Samawah on May 1. Iraqi security forces and Sunni tribal fighters killed 10 ISIS militants in an hours-long clash Saturday, security sources said. The incident occurred in Amiriyat al-Falluja in Anbar province — a town more than ...

REPORTED BY KALAHAN DENG The Lebanese group Hezbollah has confirmed that their top commander known as Mustafa Badreddine died as a result of alertly shelling fired by Jihadists in Syria. At the same time, Hezbollah leaders are accusing Israel as being involved in the killing of their high commander. They say that they will response to this assassination at the ...

Edited by Nelly Tawil In a speech broadcast on Sunday, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has announced his country would not use nuclear weapons unless its sovereignty is infringed by others with nuclear arms and set a five-year plan to boost the secretive state’s moribund economy. The development follows a series of provocative weapons tests carried out by the ...

REPORTED BY KALAHAN DENG The British Columbia Community Football Association in Canada (BCCFA) , Spring Flag Under 12, 14, and 16 years Championships is in its fifth week and Vancouver Trojans Football Team has proven itself to be one of the best in this Championships so far. The team has won 13 games out of 16 up to this junction, ...

EDITED BY KALAHAN DENG Her name was Ambreen. She was just 15. Her alleged crime: Helping a neighbor and her boyfriend elope. For that, she was dragged from her home, injected with sedatives, strangled, tied up in a van and then burned, Pakistani officials said. More than a dozen people have been arrested in the brutal and barbaric killing, including ...

EDITED BY KALAHAN DENG Two days after becoming the presumptive Republican nominee, Donald Trump wished the world a happy Cinco de Mayo on Thursday when he shared a photo of himself grinning and eating a taco bowl at his desk at Trump Tower. Trump posted the picture to Twitter and Facebook with the caption, “Happy Cinco de Mayo! The best ...

EDITED BY KALAHAN DENG An Australian ISIS recruiter who called on his countrymen to “start attacking before they attack you” has died in a U.S. airstrike. Neil Prakash was the country’s “most prominent” ISIS recruiter and its “highest value target,” according to Australian Attorney General George Brandis. “He was the individual more than any other who had been actively inspiring ...