Kasmaal  Independent Somali news and analysis website .

A lower court in Seoul sentenced former President Park Geun-hye, 66, to 24 years in prison and fined her 18 billion won ($16.8 million) on corruption charges Friday. This makes her the nation’s third ex-president to be criminally convicted. The decision by the Seoul Central District Court came almost a year after she was removed […]

NATO does not want a new arms race with Russia, the alliance’s secretary general has said amid heightened tensions following an ex-spy’s poisoning in England. “We don’t want a new arms race, so we are focused on how can we respond” in a “firm strong predictable, but also measured and defensive, way,” Jens Stoltenberg told […]

© Daphné Benoit, AFP | Soldiers of the Operation Barkhane, a French counter-terrorism operation in Africa’s Sahel region have dinner with French defence minister Florence Parly as they celebrate New Year’s eve, on December 31, 2017. French and Malian troops killed about 30 Islamist insurgents during a gunbattle in a region near the border with […]

President Donald Trump gives a thumbs up during a roundtable discussion on tax policy, Thursday, April 5, 2018, in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia.(AP Photo/Evan Vucci) President Trump, speaking at a roundtable on tax reform, said the military would be building “some” of the southern border wall. Trump’s remarks came during an extended riff on […]

The widely shared photo captured Juli Briskman giving the middle finger to the presidential motorcade in Virginia in October 2017.   (BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/GETTY IMAGES) The woman says her employer violated state employment law because the government contractor feared retaliation. The widely shared photo captured Juli Briskman giving the middle finger to the presidential motorcade in Virginia in […]

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, (L), Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan reaffirmed their commitment to Syria’s territorial integrity during a summit in Ankara yesterday. The Turkish, Russian and Iranian leaders said the aim of their joint efforts is to establish peace in Syria and maintain the country’s territorial integrity, while vowing […]

Opposition candidate Julius Maada Bio has won a narrow victory in a run-off election to become Sierra Leone’s next president, according to official results by the country’s electoral body. The National Electoral Commission announced at 10:00pm local time that Maada Bio of the Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) won 51.8 percent of a total of […]

In this April 18, 2017 file photo, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg speaks at his company’s annual F8 developer conference in San Jose, Calif. (AP Photo Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg will testify in Congress next week over the hijacking of users’ personal data by political consultancy Cambridge Analytica, a House committee announced Wednesday. The hearing, […]

© Sergey Guneev / Sputnik As the case for Moscow’s involvement in the poisoning of Sergei Skripal is weakened by new revelations, Russian President Vladimir Putin says he simply wants the diplomatic fallout over the incident to end. “We are not waiting for anything,” the Russian president said at a joint press conference with his Turkish and […]

NAIROBI, Kenya — A police contingent loyal to a top opposition leader in Somalia took over Parliament for several hours on Wednesday, pushing a growing political rift to the brink of armed confrontation. Parliamentary police officers loyal to Mohamed Osman Jawari, the Parliament speaker, disrupted a no-confidence vote against him early Wednesday. The police lined […]