(AL Jazeera Media Network) Marawi, Philippines – Maisara Dandamun-Latiph’s office sits on a hill overlooking the ruins of Marawi, the southern Philippine city that was destroyed during a five-month battle with hardline fighters linked to the ISIL (ISIS) group in 2017.
Dandamun-Latiph was named chairperson of the Marawi Compensation Board in 2023, after years of promises to rebuild the city came to nothing.
Now, Marawi residents are finally beginning to receive payouts, in a compensation process that also must...
(BBC News) A senior Hamas official told the BBC that it will not participate in the indirect talks on a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal due to resume in Doha on Thursday.
The Palestinian armed group wanted a roadmap for implementing the agreement and would “not engage in negotiations for the sake of negotiations in order to provide cover for Israel to continue its war,” the official said.
He reiterated that the roadmap should be...
(BBC News) Iran has dismissed calls from the UK and other western countries to refrain from retaliation against Israel for the killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran last month.
Amid a flurry of international diplomacy to de-escalate tensions, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer urged Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian to "stand down its ongoing threats of a military attack” in a rare telephone conversation on Monday.
But Pezeshkian said retaliation was a “way to stop...
(Al Jazeera Media Network) Russian President Vladimir Putin says Ukraine is trying to undermine Russian stability with its incursion into the south of the country and warns that Ukraine will receive “a worthy response”.
Last week, Ukrainian forces rammed through the Russian border and swept across western parts of the Kursk region. The incursion is Ukraine’s biggest across the border since the start of Russia’s war in the country in 2022.
Moscow has hit back militarily by deploying...
(Al Jazeera Media Network) Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has nominated a moderate diplomat as foreign minister and a female official as urban development minister as he presented his new cabinet.
Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf announced on Sunday the names of the 19-member cabinet presented by the president during an assembly session broadcast live on state television.
The nominations appear in line with the hopes that the election of Pezeshkian last month, to replace the hardline Ebrahim Raisi, who...
(Al Jazeera Media Network) Iran is set to carry out an order by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to “harshly punish” Israel over the assassination of a Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps deputy commander has said.
“The supreme leader’s orders regarding the harsh punishment of Israel and revenge for the blood of martyr Ismail Haniyeh are clear and explicit … and they will be implemented in the best possible way,” Ali Fadavi...
(BBC News) When Kyiv launched a cross-border raid into Russia’s Kursk region bordering Ukraine, the question from some military experts was: “Why?”
One of Ukraine’s biggest battlefield issues is manpower. Russia has more soldiers and is inching closer to the eastern Ukrainian town of Pokrovsk.
So, sending hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers into Russia itself is, shall we say, counterintuitive in the eyes of some.
But not all.
"It wasn’t accidental,” said war expert Kostyantyn Mashovets in a Facebook...
(BBC News) Three scheduled Taylor Swift concerts in Vienna have been cancelled because of a reported security threat.
The shows were to take place on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday at the Ernst Happel Stadium.
On Wednesday, two people were arrested on suspicion of planning attacks on large events in the area around the Austrian capital.
A statement from the organizers said: "Due to confirmation by government officials of a planned terrorist attack at the Ernst Happel Stadium, we...
(Al Jazeera Media Network) Rioters have attacked people, shops, cars, and public spaces as far-right violence sweeps across the United Kingdom.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer has decried “far-right thuggery”.
But members of Muslim community and activists have accused politicians, including the governing Labour party, of downplaying the levels of racism and Islamophobia taking place. They also say politicians and some media outlets are to blame for railing against migration for years.
What started the riots?
Disinformation on social media is...
(BBC News) A state of emergency has been declared in the Kursk region of Russia, as a rare cross-border attack by Ukrainian troops continued for a second day.
Acting regional governor Alexei Smirnov said the move was necessary "to eliminate the consequences of enemy forces coming into the region."
Thousands of people have been evacuated from border areas, Smirnov said earlier, adding that doctors were being brought in from other cities.
Earlier, President Vladimir Putin accused Ukraine...
