World Current Affairs

Pakistan PM Nawaz Sharif Under Fire Over Travel Expenses

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistan's billionaire prime minister has triggered outrage in his homeland after billing $2.2 million per year in travel expenses and spending one-fifth of his term abroad.

Nawaz Sharif has embarked on 65 foreign trips since taking office in June 2013.

The cost of Sharif and his officials spending on the 185 days overseas has reached more than $6 million — or $187,000 monthly, the country's foreign ministry revealed in a report presented to parliament this week.

The average worker in Pakistan earns a monthly income of around $116, according to figures published by theU.N.'s International Labor Organization. Sharif's official monthly salary is about $1,600, which he donates to public education projects.

According to a the foreign ministry document, Sharif visited the U.K. 17 times for 

Artist depicts Chinese rock stars as colossal mountain temples

Beijing 

Artist Du Kun juxtaposes traditional Chinese values and modern western ideas in his massive oil paintings, which depict Chinese rock stars embedded in traditional mountaintop temples.

Hair is painted as cascading waterfalls, verdant tree canopies and gnarled roots, while noses are Buddhist deities, and necks are elaborately detailed worship halls.

Artist depicts Chinese rock stars as colossal mountain temples

The images are also reminiscent of the hallucinatory portraits of Italian renaissance artist Giuseppe Arcimboldo.

Temples and hipsters of china

The images are also reminiscent of the hallucinatory portraits of Italian renaissance artist Giuseppe Arcimboldo.

Evocatively titled "Revels of the Rock Gods," Du's 2-meter (6.5 ft) high portraits are now being exhibited at the Mizuma Art Gallery in Tokyo this month.

Du says the series is a reflection of his generation's worldview.

"Those of us born in the 1980s were heavily influenced by traditional Buddhist or Confucian values, but also grew up with the great impact of western ideas. We live in a great transformative era in China."

US airstrikes target Islamic State militants in Libya

Military has not yet determined if target, an Isis leader linked to last year’s Sousse attack, has been killed

US warplanes have carried out airstrikes on an Islamic State base in western Libya, targeting a leader linked to last year’s Sousse beach massacre in Tunisia.

Peter Cook, the Pentagon spokesman, indicated that the military had not yet determined if the target of Friday’s attack, Noureddine Chouchane, was killed. Reports indicated that 41 people, including suspected Isis militants, died in the attack near Sabratha.

Chouchane, a Tunisian, was suspected of being involved in two recent attacks in his native country, including the Sousse attack in which more than 30 British nationals were killed

ISIS Be

ating Woman Triggers Fallujah Clashes: Officials

Fighting erupted in the ISIS-stronghold of Fallujah on Friday after the extremist militants attacked a local woman for not covering her hands, according to Iraqi officials.

"The clashes started when tens of Fallujah men stood against ISIS militants who started to beat a woman in a Fallujah market because she was not wearing gloves," said Sabah Karhoot, the chairman of the governing council of Anbar province where the city is located. "Therefore, the men could not stand and do nothing.