Despite the unwanted publicity of a criminal trial for one of their main suppliers, business is booming at Pyongyang’s ‘Singapore shops,’ which sell everything from Ukrainian vodka to brand-name knock-offs from China. The stores stock many of the very things United Nations’ sanctions...

  (Zaman Al Wasl)- Clashes intensify Thursday between Kurdish-led forces and Daesh (ISIS) near Hajin town east of Deir Ezzor province, activists said. The US-backed group made fresh gains over the week against jihadists defending their eastern Syria stronghold, according to...

 (Zaman Al Wasl)- 14 bodies have been exhumed from Panorama mass graves near the northeastern city of Raqqa, once the capital Daesh’s (ISIS) self-styled caliphate, Kurdish-run news site reported Thursday. Raqqa was liberated in a U.S.-backed campaign that ended more than a year...

From dusk till dawn, the Afghan capital of Kabul resembles an abandoned city these days, shrouded in the thick black smoke of mostly coal-fired heaters amid the harsh winter. Air pollution during the winter in this fast-developing metropolis has made breathing difficult for locals,...