Inside the street battles for Mosul

ISIL fighters have launched several fierce counterattacks against Iraqi forces on the eastern outskirts of Mosul city, underscoring the intense battle ahead as government troops and their allies push into densely populated neighbourhoods. An ISIL suicide car bomber targeted Iraqi troops in the city's eastern Qadisiya neighbourhood early on Saturday, setting off heavy fighting that involved mortar rounds, gunfire, and rocket-propelled grenades. Iraqi officers told the AFP news agency that fighting was also under way in the adjoining Arbajiya area.

Dramatic Images Show Oroville Dam Crisis

In February 2017, Oroville Dam's main and emergency spillways were significantly damaged, prompting the evacuation of more than 180,000 people living downstream along the Feather River and the relocation of a fish hatchery. Damage to the dam's main spillway appeared on February 7, resulting in its closure as management tried to assess the extent of damage and ways to mitigate further damage. As storms dumped significant precipitation on the area, the lake level rose until it flowed over a concrete weir at the top of the dam's emergency spillway, despite the reopening of the damaged main spillway. As water flowed uncontrolled over the weir, headward erosion of the emergency spillway threatened to undermine and collapse the concrete weir, which could have sent a 30-foot (9 m) wall of water into the Feather River below and flooded communities downstream. A collapse never occurred, but the main spillway suffered significant damage and the bare slope of the emergency spillway was significantly eroded.

Somalia declares 'national disaster' over drought

Somalia's new leader has declared a national disaster for a prolonged drought that has forced about half of the country's population to seek urgent food assistance and sparked fears of a potential famine. The announcement on Tuesday by President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed's office came a day after the World Health Organisation (WHO) warned that Somalia was at risk of its third famine in 25 years - the last one in 2011 killed some 260,000 people. "The president has appealed to the international community to urgently respond to the calamity in order to help families and individuals to recover from the effects of the drought disaster to avoid humanitarian tragedy," read a statement from the presidency.

14 Years of US-Led Death and Destruction in Afghanistan

'Boom Boom' Afridi retires

He had considered continuing as a player in the shortest format of the game but announced on Sunday that he was calling a halt to an illustrious and occasionally controversial 21-year international career. "I have said goodbye to international cricket," said Afridi after smashing a 28-ball 54 in a Pakistan Super League match for Peshawar Zalmi in Sharjah. "I am playing for my fans and will continue to play this league for another two years but it's goodbye from international cricket. "Now my foundation is important for me. I have played with seriousness and in a professional way for my country."

Famine fears rise as Somalia suffers worst drought in decades

Historic Hira Cave a big draw with the faithful

Just outside the holy city of Makkah lies one of Islam's most important historical sites — a cave where Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) spent time in seclusion, contemplation and self-reflection. It was here, inside Hira Cave located near the top of a steep hill called Jabal Nour (Mountain of Light), where Allah revealed to the Prophet (pbuh) the first verses of the Qur'an through the angel Jebril. Today, the site is among few still preserved from the Prophet's time — with help from Pakistani workers in the Kingdom. Each year, Muslims deepen their prayers and supplication in the final 10 nights of Ramadan, during which time some 1,400 years ago the miraculous revelation took place on Jabal Nour.

The hill is not part of the annual Haj pilgrimage, but its location so close to the holy city of Makkah and its significance as a place of enlightenment draws thousands of pilgrims here every year. But present-day visitors encounter a markedly different summit from the one the Prophet (pbuh) experienced. For starters, there are now more than 1,000 steps that guide pilgrims up the rocky hill to the secluded cave. Along the way, entrepreneurial Pakistanis sell bottled water, snacks and tea to pilgrims exhausted by the climb.

Unlike the quiet and seemingly endless stretch of nature the Prophet (pbuh) would have seen from the cave, massive high-rises housing five-star hotels jut into the distant skyline just steps away from the cube-shaped Kaaba. The Pakistani workers and beggars who live off the mountain's draw say they play a key role in helping to preserve it. Nizam Din, from the Pakistani city of Quetta, spends his days begging and fixing broken cement steps along the path up Jabal Nour. Jamal Khan, from Karachi, Pakistan's largest city and main port, also earns a living by serving the pilgrims who make their way to the cave.

"Our lives here are better because we do not have jobs back home," he said. "What is a better place to be than here where the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) received his first revelation from Allah?" Makkah's mayor, Osama Al-Bar, says the municipality ensures the area's cleanliness. There are also plans, he said, for the development of a visitors' center near the hill to explain to people its significance and history. He said the area is watched over by officials of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, who ensure visitors do not turn it into a place of worship that venerates anything other than Allah.

Russia opposition leader Alexei Navalny under house arrest

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has been placed under house arrest and forbidden from using the internet or receiving visitors. The house arrest is for two months, but can be extended. Investigators accused him of violating the terms of a suspended sentence from an earlier case. Navalny, a leading opposition figure and anti-corruption campaigner, has dismissed the charges against him as ridiculous and politically motivated. He was given a five-year suspended sentence for the theft of 16m roubles ($450,000; £270,000) from a timber company in 2009. Officials said he had repeatedly travelled outside Moscow, in violation of the sentence. He was also charged with resisting arrest at a rally on Monday evening, at which hundreds of other activists were also picked up by police.

Dakota Access Pipeline protests

The Dakota Access Pipeline protests, also known by the hashtag #NoDAPL, are grassroots movements that began in early 2016 in reaction to the approved construction of Energy Transfer Partners' Dakota Access Pipeline in the northern United States. The pipeline was projected to run from the Bakken oil fields in western North Dakota to southern Illinois, crossing beneath the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers, as well as under part of Lake Oahe near the Standing Rock Indian Reservation. Many in the Standing Rock tribe consider the pipeline and its intended crossing of the Missouri River to constitute a threat to the region's clean water and to ancient burial grounds. In April, Standing Rock Sioux elder LaDonna Brave Bull Allard established a camp as a center for cultural preservation and spiritual resistance to the pipeline; over the summer the camp grew to thousands of people. 

The protests have drawn international attention and have been said to be "reshaping the national conversation for any environmental project that would cross the Native American land." In September 2016 construction workers bulldozed a section of land the tribe had identified as sacred ground and when protesters entered the area security workers used attack dogs which bit at least six of the protesters and one horse. The incident was filmed and viewed by several million people on YouTube and other social media. In late October, armed soldiers and police with riot gear and military equipment cleared an encampment that was directly in the proposed pipeline's path. 

In late November 2016, many new participants joined the protest; fluctuating numbers of protesters remained in the thousands. Police use of water cannons on protesters in freezing weather drew significant media attention. On December 4, under President Barack Obama's administration the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers denied an easement for construction of the pipeline under the Missouri River. An environmental impact assessment was to be conducted by the Army Corps, but many protesters continued camping on the site, not considering the matter closed.[5][6][7] On January 24, 2017, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to advance the construction of the pipeline under "terms and conditions to be negotiated". The order would expedite the environmental review that Trump described as an "incredibly cumbersome, long, horrible permitting process.

Heavy snowfall in Chitral

How Romania is developing its own culture of protest

Millions of Iraqi children repeatedly and relentlessly targeted

Refugees Protest Living Conditions in Greek Camps

Labour Life in Pakistan

The conditions under which Pakistan's blue-collar labour works have often been raised by trade unions and workers' rights organisations. There is also a controversial, yet wide use of child labour in Pakistan. Along with other countries in the South Asia, Pakistan extensively exports much of its labour to nearby Persian Gulf countries of the Middle East.

Could Ukraine's War Finally Be Over?

The War in Donbass is an armed conflict in the Donbass region of Ukraine. From the beginning of March 2014, protests by pro-Russian and anti-government groups took place in the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts of Ukraine, together commonly called the "Donbass", in the aftermath of the 2014 Ukrainian revolution and the Euromaidan movement. These demonstrations, which followed the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation, and which were part of a wider group of concurrent pro-Russian protests across southern and eastern Ukraine orchestrated by the Russian government, escalated into an armed conflict between the separatist forces of the self-declared Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics (DPR and LPR respectively), and the Ukrainian government.[51][52] Prior to a change of the top leadership in August 2014,[53] the separatists were largely led by Russian citizens.[54] During the middle of 2014, Russian paramilitaries were reported to make up between 15% and 80% of the combatants.

Thousands mourn victims of Quebec Mosque terror attack

The Syrian Refugees

Walls of Shame: The US-Mexican Border

Following the Boundary Treaty of 1970 between the United States and Mexico that settled all the pending boundary disputes and uncertainties related to the Rio Grande (Río Bravo del Norte) border, the national continental border extends 3,145 kilometers (1,954 mi), excluding the maritime boundaries of 29 km (18 mi) in the Pacific Ocean and 19 km (12 mi) in the Gulf of Mexico. According to the International Boundary and Water Commission, this continental border follows the middle of the Rio Grande—according to the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo between the two nations, "along the deepest channel" (also known as the thalweg)—from its mouth on the Gulf of Mexico a distance of 2,019 km (1,255 mi) to a point just upstream of El Paso and Ciudad Juárez.[8] It then follows an alignment westward overland and it is marked by monuments for a distance of 859 km (534 mi) to the Colorado River, when it reaches its highest elevation at the intersection with the Continental Divide. Thence it follows the middle of that river northward a distance of 38 km (24 mi), and then it again follows an alignment westward overland and marked by monuments a distance of 227 km (141 mi) to the Pacific Ocean (excluding the maritime boundaries of 18 miles (30 km) in the Pacific Ocean and 12 miles (20 km) in the Gulf of Mexico).

The official 'border region' extends 60 km (37 mi) north and south of the aforementioned boundaries and 60 km (37 mi) east into the Gulf of Mexico and 60 km (37 mi) west into the Pacific Ocean. The region is characterized by deserts, rugged hills, abundant sunshine, and two major rivers—the Colorado and the Rio Grande (Río Bravo del Norte)—which provide life-giving waters to the largely arid but fertile lands along the rivers in both countries.

Blue Mosque Turkey - Sultanahmet Mosque

The Sultan Ahmed Mosque or Sultan Ahmet Mosque (Turkish: Sultan Ahmet Camii) is a historic mosque located in Istanbul, Turkey. A popular tourist site, the Sultan Ahmed Mosque continues to function as a mosque today; men still kneel in prayer on the mosque's lush red carpet after the call to prayer. The Blue Mosque, as it is popularly known, was constructed between 1609 and 1616 during the rule of Ahmed I. Its Külliye contains Ahmed's tomb, a madrasah and a hospice. Magnificent hand-painted blue tiles adorn the mosque’s interior walls, and at night the mosque is bathed in blue as lights frame the mosque’s five main domes, six minarets and eight secondary domes. It sits next to the Hagia Sophia, another popular tourist site.

Hadith: Be in this world as if you were a stranger or a traveler