Kasmaal  Independent Somali news and analysis website .

Angela Merkel and Vladimir Putin at the German government guest house Meseberg Palace in Gransee, Germany / Sputnik The Iran nuclear deal, which was recently ditched by the US, humanitarian efforts in war-ravaged Syria, and the Nord Stream 2 pipeline project… Putin and Merkel hold three-hour talks and are mostly on the same page. The […]

White House counsel Don McGahn (back) listens as President Donald Trump speaks during a Cabinet meeting at the White House on Aug. 16. | Andrew Harnik/AP Photo President Donald Trump is claiming his White House lawyer, Don McGahn, was representing his interests, and following his orders, when he voluntarily testified before the special counsel in […]

The death toll from the worst flooding to hit India’s Kerala state in a century has jumped to 357 with losses to infrastructure pegged at almost $3bn. The idyllic tourist hotspot has been badgered by torrential monsoon rains since the end of May, triggering landslides and flash floods that have swept away entire villages. “Since […]

Religious practice does not fall outside the law,” Lausanne authorities said. Photo: AFP The Swiss city of Lausanne has blocked a Muslim couple’s bid to become Swiss nationals over their refusal to shake hands with members of the opposite sex. The municipality said it refused to grant the couple’s citizenship application over their lack of respect […]

FILE PHOTO. © Aboud Hamam / Reuters Islamic State managed to regain access to Syrian oil fields and make profits from selling oil, a new UN report reveals. While the UN did not point fingers, the IS reemergence seems to occur in areas held by the US-backed forces. “Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant [IS, […]

[The Associated Press]  Former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan has died at a hospital in the Swiss capital, Bern, after a brief illness.     The 80-year-old served as the seventh UN chief for almost 10 years from 1997 to 2006 and was awarded a Nobel Prize in 2001, which he shared with the UN. A […]

The NMR march in Ludvika on May 1st. Photo: Ulf Palm/TT Sweden’s authorities have long struggled with how to handle marches by the neo-Nazi Nordic Resistance Movement (NMR). Now the openly racist and anti-Semitic group is campaigning in the general election for the first time. The Administrative Court in Gothenburg ruled on Thursday that the […]

FILE PHOTO. © Reuters US President Donald Trump has vowed to take new steps to free an American pastor detained in Turkey, stating that “we haven’t seen the last of it.” Pastor Andrew Brunson has been held by Ankara since 2016. “They should have given him back a long time ago, and Turkey has in […]

Rescuers shift the stranded people to 1,200 state-run camps where more than 150,000 people already have taken shelter.   Rescue workers have used helicopters and boats to evacuate hundreds of people stranded on their roofs following unprecedented flooding in India’s Kerala state where more than 160 people have died, officials said. Heavy rains over the past eight days […]

Police have identified the suspect as a 26-year-old man from Somalia. The city of Offenburg only has 60,000 people, but is regarded as a crime hotspot.     A doctor was stabbed to death in his own practice on Thursday in a seemingly unprovoked attack in the south-western German city of Offenburg. A 26-year-old man […]