Kasmaal  Independent Somali news and analysis website .

   Ethiopian lawmakers yesterday unanimously elected the country’s first female president, days after approving one of the world’s few “gender-balanced” Cabinets. As seasoned diplomat Sahle-Work Zewde, 68, takes the largely ceremonial post, many celebrated Africa’s only current female head of state. Africa’s first female president, Liberia’s Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, left office this year. Sahle-Work has […]

Major Gen. Kim Do-gyun of South Korea, right, and his North Korean counterpart Lt. Gen. An Ik-san shake hands ahead of a general-level military meeting at Tongilgak, the North’s side of the truce village of Panmunjeom inside the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), Friday. / Joint Press Corps PANMUNJEOM/SEOUL _ The two Koreas agreed late Friday to […]

AA Photo President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan directed a series of pressing questions about the killing of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi at Saudi authorities on Friday, demanding that they reveal his killer and the place his body has been hidden. Speaking at a meeting of the provincial leaders of the Justice and Development Party (AK […]

King Salman and Mohammed Bin Salman greet family of Jamal Khashoggi (SPA The son of murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi left Saudi Arabia after having earlier been prevented from leaving the country by a travel ban. Salah Khashoggi and his family arrived in Washington on Thursday on a flight from Saudi Arabia, according to two […]

AMMAN- At least 14 people died, dozens went missing and 34 were rescued by Thursday evening from flash floods in the hot springs area near the Dead Sea as the country witnessed heavy quick rain, according to authorities. Majority of those killed, rescued and reported missing were students on a school trip to the Zara […]

Central American migrants, part of a second wave of migrants heading to the US, walk along a highway as they continue their journey to the Mexican border, in Zacapa, Guatemala [Luis Echeverria/Reuters] The US military has received a request for active-duty troops on the US-Mexico border, a US official said on Thursday, after President Donald […]

Reuters Journalist Junpei Yasuda, center, who was held hostage by Islamist militants for 40 months, arrives at Narita Airport in Chiba Prefecture on Thursday. NARITA, Chiba (Jiji Press) — Japanese freelance journalist Junpei Yasuda, who was released from militant captivity in Syria, arrived at Narita Airport near Tokyo on Thursday evening after leaving Turkey earlier […]

A US P-8 Poseidon plane © Boeing Defense A senior Russian military official has accused the US of being directly involved in a drone attack on the Russian airbase in Syria’s Khmeimim. The aircraft were controlled from a US spy plane nearby, he claimed. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was speaking about a report made by Russia’s […]

One of the growing number of flashpoints in Beijing’s ties with Washington is the US’ military posture in the South China Sea [Li Gang/Xinhua via AP] China vowed it will never give up an inch of its territory – whether it’s the self-ruled island of Taiwan it claims as its own or in the disputed waters […]

President Donald Trump signs one of the early versions of his travel ban executive order on Jan. 27, 2017 in Arlington, VA. | Olivier Douliery-Pool/Getty Images   Justice Department attorneys who pored over a slew of controversial executive orders considered and later issued by President Donald Trump received a prestigious award from their agency Wednesday. […]