(middle east eye)- The United Nations hopes to carry out the first medical evacuations from Aleppo on Friday, if the "humanitarian pause" in the Syrian army's Russian-backed assault on the city holds. Russia announced the ceasefire earlier this week as a "goodwill gesture," amid growing...

British American Tobacco said on Friday it had launched a $47-billion bid for control of rival Reynolds American, eying rapid expansion into US and emerging markets and e-cigarettes. The deal, worth the equivalent of 43 billion euros, would create the world's largest listed tobacco company...

Churches across the world are joining a Helsinki parish in ringing their bells daily to commemorate civilians killed in the battle for the Syrian city of Aleppo. The bell tolls started on Oct. 12 at the Lutheran parish of Kallio in Helsinki, following the intensified Russian and Syrian...

Gunmen wearing suicide vests attacked government targets in the Kurdish-controlled city of Kirkuk and killed 16 at an Iranian-run construction site further north on Friday as troops advanced on jihadist bastion Mosul. There was no immediate claim for the attacks but nearly all such raids...