BANGKOK: A Thai man was jailed for 35 years on Friday for Facebook posts deemed insulting to the royal family, a watchdog said, in one of the harshest sentences handed down for a crime that insulates Thailand’s ultra-rich monarchy from criticism, reports AFP.A Bangkok military court convicted…

BEIRUT: US-led coalition forces launched heavy raids into Friday morning in support of Syrian fighters battling to oust theIslamic State group from its bastion of Raqa, a monitor said, reports AFP. The Kurdish-Arab alliance known as the Syrian Democratic Forces broke into Raqa city’s east earlier…

TOKYO: Japan’s parliament passed a law Friday that clears the way for its ageing Emperor Akihito to step down, in what would be the first imperial abdication in more than two centuries, reports AFP. The popular 83-year-old monarch shocked the country last summer when he signalled his desire to…

MEXICO CITY: A giant temple to the Aztec god of the wind and a court where the Aztecs played a deadly ball game have been discovered in the heart of Mexico…

BAMAKO: Three United Nations peacekeepers were killed and eight others wounded when they came under sustained attack in Kidal in Mali’s troubled north, the UN said Friday, reports AFP. The camp “came under heavy rocket/mortar fire” on Thursday and “a little later a position nearby…