World

The organizer of a Malaysian festival cancelled after a kiss between two male members of The 1975 is seeking $2.7 million in damages from the British indie-rock band, its lawyer said Friday.

Homosexuality is illegal in Muslim-majority Malaysia and laws criminalizing sodomy are punishable by imprisonment, while LGBTQ people in the country also face regular discrimination by authorities.

On a bright Saturday in August almost 25 years ago, Kevin Skelton was rejoining his family shopping for new school shoes in Omagh's town centre when a massive bomb went off.

Amid the ensuing carnage, he clambered through a hole in the shop's storefront trying to reach his wife Philomena and their three girls.

Correction: This article originally identified European Parliament member Peter van Dalen as Danish. He is Dutch.

Former President Donald Trump is a unique threat to the integrity of the United States not seen since the Confederate secession of the Civil War, warned Dutch European Parliament member Peter van Dalen in an opinion piece for POLITICO.

"Trump seems a dark throwback to the 19th century, when the American civil war erupted because men like John C. Calhoun, Nathan B. Forrest and Jefferson Davis wanted their truth to be victorious," wrote van Dalen. "The result: a bloody secession. Trump now similarly wants his truth to be victorious. And while that hopefully doesn’t mean an actual civil war, the U.S. is in the middle of a disorienting cultural civil war."

In the scorching summer heat, an Israeli farmer tends to a dripline taking a mix of ground and recycled water to palm trees -- an approach honed for decades in the arid country and now drawing wide interest abroad.

At the plantation in a desert near Eilat, a coastal holiday resort on Israel's southern tip, the mineral-rich water passes through a plastic tube, nourishing the dates high above.

Beaten, forced to eat animal feces and chained to a dog cage -- the abuse of an Indonesian maid highlights the government's failure to protect domestic workers at home even as it moves to help those abroad, critics say.

Siti Khotimah left her Central Java hometown for capital Jakarta last year when she found a maid job on Facebook to help her parents with debt.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has dismissed his top general and called for stepping up war preparations "in an offensive way", including boosting weapons production and conducting more drills, state media reported Thursday.

With a cigarette in hand, Kim was shown talking to a room full of uniformed top generals, and pointing at maps, images in state media showed, while he discussed "major military actions" against South Korea at a meeting of the Central Military Commission.