Malaysian court sends blogger to 6 months jail for criticising king

KUALA LUMPUR: An online technology news portal reporter was fined RM10,000 for posting two Twitter comments insulting the Yang di-Pertuan Agong.

Effi Nazrel Saharudin, 35, was ordered by Sessions Court judge Zulqarnain Hassan yesterday to serve six months’ jail if he failed to settle the fine.

He paid the fine after the proceedings with his father’s assistance.

Arab neighbors joined ISIS slaughter, escaped Yazidi says

Faysh Khabur, Iraq (CNN) -- In an exodus of almost biblical proportions, thousands trudge across a river to escape killers belonging to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS.

Entire families carry nothing but the clothes on their backs. Some are barefoot.

Jamal Jamir, a 23-year-old university student from Sinjar, told CNN his family fled to the barren and windswept Mount Sinjar more than a week ago after ISIS captured their town. The group, which calls itself the Islamic State, has been on a rampage, killing members of various minorities, including Yazidis.

Sabah, Sarawak activists petition the UN

MIRI: Sabah, Sarawak activists, NGOs and politicians, have drawn up a Petition, addressed to the UN Secretary-General, on re-visiting the self-determination issue for Sabah and Sarawak.

The Petition is being copied to the UN Special Committee of 24 (C-24), or Decolonization Committee, and the UN Human Rights Committee.

Pope says the violence in Iraq offends God and humanity

ROME (Reuters) - Pope Francis said that violence and destruction in Iraq offends God and humanity and he held a silent prayer for victims of the conflict during his weekly address in Rome on Sunday.

"We are left incredulous and dismayed by the news coming from Iraq," the Argentine-born pontiff said, two days after the United States began air strikes to tackle an insurgency that threatens to tear the country apart.

"Thousands of people, among them many Christians, banished brutally from their houses, children dying of hunger and thirst as they flee, women kidnapped, people massacred, violence of all kinds, destruction everywhere ... All of this deeply offends God and deeply offends humanity."

Will anyone stop ISIS?

Yazidi lawmaker: We're being slaughtered

Activist: Must act before 40,000 killed

Iraqis shelter in unfinished buildings

(CNN) -- If you're following the news about ISIS, which now calls itself the Islamic State, you might think you've mistakenly clicked on a historical story about barbarians from millennia ago.

In a matter of months, the group seized territory in both Iraq and Syria and declared an Islamic caliphate, celebrating its own shocking slaughter along the way.