Dominic Sirico

For decades, any Syrian daring to broach political topics got used to speaking in hushed tones and with a watchful eye trained for a listener among the crowd. “There were spies everywhere,” Mohannad al-Katee said in Al-Rawda cafe in Damascus, adding almost in disbelief: “It’s the first time that I sit in a cafe and … Read more

Joe Biden led US presidents and other world leaders in paying tribute to Jimmy Carter, who died Sunday aged 100. “America and the world lost an extraordinary leader, statesman and humanitarian,” Biden said in a statement released by the White House. He added later in a televised address that Carter “lived a life measured not … Read more

Wearing a safety belt, helmet and work boots, Raju Nishad navigates the scaffolding, hammering blocks that will form part of a building in a new neighbourhood in central Israel’s town of Beer Yaakov. While he and other Indians working alongside him do not look out of place on the expansive construction site, they are relative … Read more

Flags flew at half-mast on Monday as South Korea mourned 179 people killed in the worst plane crash on its soil, as investigators probe why the Jeju Air plane crash-landed and burst into flames. The country has started seven days of national mourning, with the acting president flying to the crash site in southwestern Muan … Read more

Jimmy Carter’s 1977-1981 presidency included successes like the Camp David peace accords, but also enough controversy for US voters to see him as weak — and send him packing after only one term. Carter’s legacy however was largely built on his post-presidency, the longest in US history. Here are a few key moments in the … Read more

With a focus on human rights, US policy toward Latin America under Jimmy Carter briefly tempered a long tradition of interventionism in a key sphere of American influence, analysts say. Carter, who died Sunday at the age of 100, defied the furor of US conservatives to negotiate the handover of the Panama Canal to Panamanian … Read more

A Jeju Air plane carrying 181 people from Bangkok to South Korea crashed on arrival Sunday, colliding with a barrier and bursting into flames, with only two survivors rescued so far and 96 confirmed dead. A collision with birds and adverse weather conditions were cited by the authorities as likely causes of the crash that … Read more

Russian President Vladimir Putin apologised on Saturday over the crash of an Azerbaijani Airlines plane, though he stopped short of accepting that it might have been hit by Russian fire. Putin did admit that Russian air defences were at work when the passenger plane tried to land in Grozny before crashing, and the Kremlin said … Read more

Rising sick leave rates may be bad news for German companies at a time the economy is already ailing — but for private eye Marcus Lentz, it has been a boon for his business. He is seeing a record number of requests from firms for his agency to check up on employees suspected of calling … Read more