Shinjiro Koizumi, launching a bid to become Japan's next prime minister, pledged on Saturday to focus on revitalising the economy by boosting wages and productivity to counter rising prices. Koizumi, seen as a frontrunner in the ruling party's leadership race, said Japan must shift the focus of ec
For a decade, Palestinian bank worker Shady Salama Al-Rayyes paid into a $93,000 mortgage on his flat in a tall, modern block in one of Gaza City's prime neighbourhoods. Now, he and his family are destitute, after fleeing an Israeli demolition strike that collapsed the building in a cloud of black
South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Hyun said on Friday the government will work to address problems faced by Korean workers with US visas before proceeding with a $350 billion investment package that is part of a bilateral trade deal. His remarks come after a recent US immigration raid resulted in
India said on Friday it hoped Saudi Arabia would keep in mind mutual interests and sensitivities between the two countries, two days after Riyadh signed a mutual defence pact with New Delhi's old foe Pakistan. Saudi Arabia and nuclear-armed Pakistan signed the pact on Wednesday, and although few d
The Euphrates River is a simmering front line in the struggle for the new Syria. It separates the country’s two largest armed camps, marking the physical divide between clashing visions for the future. On one side is the army of the new Damascus government, dominated by Islamist factions who
Indian leader Rahul Gandhi has criticised the Election Commission of India (ECI), accusing its chief Gyanesh Kumar of “protecting those murdering democracy”, BBC has reported. At a press briefing on Thursday, Gandhi said voter names had been manipulated to give the ruling Bharatiya Jan
The Israeli military said on Wednesday it was opening an additional route for 48 hours that Palestinians could use to leave Gaza City as it stepped up efforts to empty the city of civilians and confront thousands of Hamas combatants. Hundreds of thousands of people are sheltering in the city and m
Pakistan’s security forces raided two separate militant hideouts in the country’s northwest, killing 31 insurgents, the military said Monday. The overnight raids took place in the districts of Bannu and Laki Marwat in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering Afghanistan, according to a mi
Twelve soldiers were killed in northwest Pakistan on Saturday in an ambush by Islamist militants on an army convoy, officials said. The soldiers were moving in vehicles when they came under fire in the mountainous Badar area of South Waziristan near the border with Afghanistan. Pakistan's militar
South Korean workers who returned home on Friday after being detained for a week by US immigration authorities described their horror over the raid at their workplace in the state of Georgia and their relief at being reunited with their families. "It was like a military operation," said one of the
Nepal's President Ramchandra Paudel dissolved parliament and called for fresh elections on Mar 5, his office said late on Friday, following a week of deadly violence that culminated in the appointment of the country's first woman prime minister in the interim. The announcement came just hours afte
The UN refugee agency (UNHCR) has closed eight centres providing support to Afghan refugees forced back to the country because Taliban authorities are preventing female UN staff from entering them, an official said on Friday. The United Nations says Pakistan is driving Afghan refugees back home ag
Some 300 South Korean workers returned home on Friday to emotional reunions with families, one week after being detained in a major US immigration raid that left some questioning whether they would ever work in the United States again. Wearing face masks, they disembarked a chartered plane at Inch
