Next week's three-nation foreign tour of Prime Minister Narendra Modi will see India and Oman sign a free trade deal. The visit will also pave the way for agreements with Ethiopia and Jordan to increase India's bilateral trade and investments.
What began as a mentor-protege relationship between UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has now evolved into a broader contest over influence, strategy, and leadership in the Middle East, points out Asif Ullah Khan.
'The unexpected turn of events and assertion of sovereignty by the Taliban has baffled the Pakistan security establishment.'
Last-minute efforts are underway to halt the scheduled execution of an Indian nurse in Yemen, with a Sufi scholar leading negotiations with the victim's family.
Qatar may have led the Muslim world's angry protests over statements made by a Bharatiya Janata Party spokesperson and a BJP leader, but Vice-President Muppavarapu Venkaiah Naidu's two-day visit to Doha over the weekend went off largely without a hitch.
Led by Nationalist Congress Party-Sharadchandra Pawar MP Supriya Sule, Group 7 will engage with key countries in Africa -- Egypt, South Africa, Ethiopia -- and Qatar to present India's position on Operation Sindoor, launched in response to the April 22 Pahalgam terror attack.
Hezbollah's executive council's head Safieddine was presumed to be the successor of Hassan Nasrallah after he was killed in September, The Times of Israel reported.
An Egyptian court on Monday overturned President Muhammed Mursi's decree that had called for parliamentary elections from April 22, questioning its constitutionality, a ruling that may deepen the political crisis in the polarised country.
The elections to 14 municipalities will be the first political election in the nation since its inception in 1932.
The Pakistani Taliban on Thursday said they had not threatened to kill cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan if he holds a march to Waziristan, and blamed a Western news agency for falsely reporting the threat.
A top leader of the banned Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan has said that his group will seek mediation by countries like Saudi Arabia if the government offers to hold peace talks.
The five detainees at Guantanamo Bay charged with planning the 9/11 attacks have filed a document accepting full responsibility for the killing of nearly 3,000 people, a media report said on Tuesday.
Terrorism will be high on the agenda of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh during his three-day visit to Saudi Arabia from Saturday when the two countries will sign an extradition treaty. Singh will be the first Indian PM to visit Saudi Arabia in the last 28 years; the last visit was undertaken by Indira Gandhi in 1982. The prime minister will hold talks with King Abdullah on a number of bilateral and regional matters of mutual concern and address the influential Shura Council.
There have been conflicting reports about whether Taliban's supreme council was consulted or not on the election
The Pakistani Taliban has said it will target journalists and media organisations for "fabricating" the statement of its spokesperson asking news outlets not to pay tribute to cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar on his retirement.
The Pakistani Taliban on Saturday named Khan Syed Mehsud alias Sajna as its new chief, a day after a US drone strike killed its former leader Hakimullah Mehsud in the lawless North Waziristan tribal region.
The second-in-command of the dreaded Islamic State militant group has been killed in a United States air strike in northern Iraq, the White House has said.
Mullah Akhtar Mansoor, a top Afghan Taliban leader who backed the peace process and a former aviation minister in the pre-2001 Taliban regime, has been appointed as the new chief of the insurgent group, as Taliban confirmed the death of its longtime supremo Mullah Omar.
Mullah Akhtar, a close aide of Mullah Omar who served as his deputy for the past three years, was chosen as the new leader.
A series of defining photographs from across the globe.
ISI chief Faiz Hameed coerced the Taliban to announce an interim government guaranteed to preserve Pakistan's control over the levers of power in Kabul, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Russia and China are tight-fisted and Iran is broke and none of them has the political will or capacity to bankroll the Afghan economy, which only the US can, points out Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
A 10-member panel to amend Egypt's Constitution met for the first time on Sunday amid political turmoil over the ouster of President Mohammed Morsi and rebuffed claims that it has devised ready-made amendments.
Taliban appears to be nearing collapse as in another blow to the group, Pakistani authorities have captured Mulla Abdul Kabir, a member of the Quetta Shura and the shadow governor of Afghanistan's eastern Nangahar province.
Makki and other LeT/JUD operatives "have been involved in raising funds, recruiting and radicalising youth to violence and planning attacks in India, particularly in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K)," the sanctions committee said, providing a statement for the reasons of Makki's listing.
Three suicide bombers struck in Saudi Arabia on Monday, including a shocking attack at Islam's second holiest site, the Prophet's Mosque in Medina, where four security guards were killed.
The Taliban had promised an 'inclusive' government that represents Afghanistan's complex ethnic makeup, but there is no Hazara member in the cabinet.
The Pakistani Taliban have mocked Interior Minister Rehman Malik by describing him as a 'comedian', with a militant spokesman saying a 'serious person' should replace him for any dialogue between the two sides.
The 'Shura' or council of a Taliban faction led by Hafiz Gul Bahadur yesterday warned parents not to send their children to five schools near the cantonment in Miranshah, the main town in North Waziristan Agency.
Pakistani news website thenews.com.pk reported that a clash broke out between the groups led by Hakimullah Mehsud and Wali-ur-Rehman. The meeting was convened to appoint a sucessor to slain Taliban commander Beitullah Mehsud.
Taliban's supreme commander Mullah Mohammad Omar, now in hiding, has put pressure on his groups in Afghanistan and Pakistan to form a new grouping which has pledged to stop targetting Pakistani security forces and instead focus attention on US-led troops in Afghanistan.
Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan's Shura (the supreme council) has decided that Hakimullah Mehsud will not directly meet the media as it would help spy agencies locate him.
The two commanders identified only as Iqbal and Gul Muhammad, both hailing from Faisalabad were arrested earlier this week by law enforcement agencies.
India is willing to walk the "extra mile" to open a new chapter in relations with Pakistan but it must act decisively against terrorism, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has asserted.
India is willing to walk the "extra mile" to open a new chapter in relations with Pakistan but it must act decisively against terrorism, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh asserted on Monday."We seek cooperative relations with Pakistan. Our objective is a permanent peace because we recognise that we are bound together by a shared future. If there is cooperation between India and Pakistan, vast opportunities will open up for trade and development that will create prosperity.
Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari recently met 50 captured Taliban leaders, including Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, in a prison to assure them that their outfit had his government's full support and that they would be freed soon, a media report in London claimed on Sunday.
Taliban militants on Tuesday declared an indefinite ceasefire in Pakistan's restive Swat valley where they have been waging an armed campaign for the last two years. Taliban spokesman Muslim Khan told reporters in Swat that a meeting of the 'Shura' or 'council' of the militants had decided to extend the ceasefire for an indefinite period. The local Taliban led by Fazlullah had last week called a ten-day unilateral truce to facilitate peace talks.
The fighting broke out between Hakimullah Mehsud and Wali-ur-Rehman during a meeting of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan 'shura' or council to choose Baitullah's successor following the outfit chief's reported death in a US drone attack, Interior Minister Rehman Malik said on Saturday night.
He was arrested as part of an ongoing crackdown on the "Quetta Shura" or council of the militants led by Mullah Muhammad Omar, the elusive chief of the Afghan Taliban.
Mullah Obaidullah Akhund, a former defence minister in the Taliban's Majlis-e-Shura or executive council, was recently arrested along with two Afghan nationals by intelligence agencies in Lahore, the Daily Times reported.
