AP, Jerusalem
Israel on Wednesday approved a reported billion-dollar budget meant to improve the living conditions of its Arab citizens, who have long suffered discrimination and are among the country’s poorest residents.
The government did not release the exact amount approved, but Israeli media reported it was between 10 and 15 billion shekels ($2.5 billion to $3.8 billion), to be spread over four to five years.
Kabul-Taliban talks in US
Dawn.com, Islamabad
Senior officials from Pakistan, Afghanistan, the United States and China will meet here in the first half of next month for reviving the reconciliation dialogue between the Afghan government and the Taliban.
“A meeting of the quadrilateral group will be held in Islamabad sometime between Jan 10 and 15,” Foreign Affairs Adviser Sartaj Aziz told Dawn.
16 killed in Syria explosions
AFP, Qamishli
At least 16 people were killed and 30 wounded by explosions in three restaurants in the northeast of Syria on Wednesday, a monitoring group said, in attacks claimed by the militant Islamic State (IS) group.
At least one of the blasts in the city of Qamishli was caused by a suicide bomber, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights told AFP. An AFP correspondent in the city said the suicide attack took place in a restaurant in a Christian neighbourhood.
