Image copyrightZahra HaiderImage captionZahra Haider’s article on sex generated thousands of comments When Pakistani writer Zahra Haider wrote about her pre-marital sexual encounters as a teenager in Islamabad for Vice magazine, social media – as you can imagine – had a lot to say. Haider, now in her 20s, moved to Canada just before her 19th birthday. She wrote that ...

AFGHANISTAN: A horrific video has emerged online which purportedly shows the execution of a woman by the Taliban militants in northern Jawzjan province. The woman was reportedly executed in Khanqa village in Aqcha district with the footage showing the woman is forced to kneel in a dessert before she is shot dead. The execution is carried out by a Taliban ...

WASHINGTON: A US congressional panel has endorsed a draft bill that seeks to block $450 million in aid to Pakistan for failing to take action against Afghanistan’s militant Haqqani Network. The National Defence Authorisation Act (NDAA) for 2017, approved last week by the House Armed Services Committee, questions Pakistan’s commitment to stopping militants from using its territory for conducting attacks. ...

Sadiq Khan and his wife Saadiya leave after casting their votes for the London mayoral elections at a polling station in south London Britain May 5, 2016. PHOTO: REUTERS LONDON: Sadiq Khan, the son of a Pakistani bus driver, became London’s first Muslim mayor on Friday, seeing off a Conservative challenger who attempted to link him to extremism and securing a ...

BEIJING (AP): A heavily Muslim Chinese province has demanded strict adherence to a ban on religion in schools after a video circulated online in which a kindergartener recites verses from the Quran. The government in the northwestern province of Gansu reiterated the officially atheistic communist government’s rules forbidding the presence of religion in public schools at all levels, saying it ...

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan greets his supporters during an opening ceremony in Istanbul. —Reuters ISTANBUL: President Tayyip Erdogan told the European Union on Friday, Turkey would not make changes to its terrorism laws required under a deal to curb migration, and declared: “we’re going our way, you go yours”. His fiery speech will be a blow to any hope in ...

A few years ago, Russian President Vladimir Putin praised the United States and its NATO allies for taking on the “burden” of fighting terrorism in Afghanistan and urged them to “carry it to the end.” But the Kremlin today appears to have embarked on a new policy aimed at turning Afghanistan into a setback or even a quagmire for Washington ...

KABUL: The British minister of state for defence has come under scathing attack over his department’s policy on Afghan interpreters seeking asylum in the United Kingdom, Daily Mail reported on Friday. Earl Howe came in for flak after he defended the British government for keeping the interpreters in the Calais Jungle or deporting them. But House of Lords members slammed ...

Rome: Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi with German Chancellor Angela Merkel after a press conference at Palazzo Chigi on Thursday.—AFP ROME: Italy and Germany agree on how Europe should tackle the migrant crisis and oppose any move to fence off borders, but they are at odds over how to fund proposed initiatives, the leaders of the two countries said on ...

An Afghan film actress Marina Golbahari has been forced to seek asylum in France after receiving death threats from the hardliners in Afghanistan for her role as an actress. The death threats against Golbahari reportedly intensified after appearing in a film festival in South Korea where she was pictured with head uncovered, drawing the attention of the hardliners. According to ...