(Reuters) - Lebanon believes that Saudi Arabia is holding leading Sunni Muslim politician Saad al-Hariri and plans to work with foreign states to secure his return to the country, a top Lebanese government official told Reuters on Thursday. Hariri resigned as prime minister on Saturday in a...

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has ordered an investigation after dozens of complaints from Arab families about relatives they say have not been heard from since their arrest by Kurdish forces. Kurds control an autonomous region in north Iraq, and they also held the disputed Kirkuk...

The European Union and the United States on Wednesday reaffirmed support for Lebanon after the resignation of its prime minister, striking a sharp contrast to Saudi Arabia, which accuses Beirut of declaring war because of the Shi‘ite group Hezbollah. Statements of support from EU ambassadors...

Saudi Arabian authorities have made further arrests in an anti-corruption crackdown on the kingdom’s political and business elite, sources familiar with the matter said on Wednesday. Dozens of royal family members, officials and business executives have already been held in the purge...

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on Wednesday that missile attacks by Yemen's Houthis targeting Saudi Arabian capital Riyadh were a reaction to what he called Saudi aggression. "How should the Yemeni people react to bombardment of their country. So they are not allowed to use their own...

Oil prices fell on Wednesday as Chinese crude imports slipped to their lowest level in a year, although traders said the overall market remains well supported on the back of OPEC-led supply cuts. Traders said the market was eyeing growing tensions in the Middle East with concern, keeping a...

China’s raw materials purchases slowed in October from record-breaking levels a month earlier, the latest sign that Beijing’s factories have been clearing inventory ahead of unprecedented government steps to curb smog over winter. Part of the slowdown from September was seasonal, with...

LONDON (Reuters) - The global rally in stocks showed no sign of slowing on Tuesday, as upbeat investors pushed the most widely-tracked index of world stocks up for a ninth straight day and it sailed past the 500-point barrier. The latest leg of the run came as Japan’s Nikkei hit its...

The U.N.Tuesday urged the Arab coalition to end a blockade which has halted the flow of humanitarian supplies into Yemen, further threatening some seven million people facing famine-like conditions. "If these channels, these lifelines, are not kept open it is catastrophic for people who...

The zoo in Russia's westernmost region says a tiger has attacked one of its staff after she entered the enclosure in violation of safety regulations. The Kaliningrad Zoo said in a statement on Monday the rare Amur tiger charged at the employee. Visitors shouted at the tiger and threw...

The husband of a British-Iranian detained by Iran is urging Britain's foreign secretary to publicly correct a statement about his wife, saying the remarks prompted authorities in Tehran to threaten to double her prison sentence. Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is serving a five-year sentence...

DUBAI (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said on Tuesday that Iran’s supply of rockets to militias in Yemen is an act of “direct military aggression”, Saudi state news agency SPA reported. The supply of rockets to the Iran-allied rebel Houthi movement could...

Iraq’s Supreme Federal Court ruled Monday that no region or province can secede, as the government seeks to prevent a repeat of September’s Kurdish independence vote. The ruling was a response to a request from the central government in Baghdad to put an end to any “misinterpretation”...

Saudi minister of Gulf affairs, Thamer al-Sabhan, said on Monday that Lebanon had declared war against Saudi Arabia because of what he described as aggression against the Kingdom by the Iran-backed group Hezbollah. “We will treat the government of Lebanon as a government declaring war...

(The Daily Star)- Israel launched its largest ever aerial training exercise over the weekend in preparation for an “extreme combat scenario,” an Israeli Defense Forces statement announced Monday.

The United States has resumed processing visas at its missions in Turkey on a "limited basis", the embassy said in an email on Monday, in what could signal a tentative improvement in the ongoing diplomatic crisis between the two countries. Turkey and the United States mutually suspended all...

European Union finance ministers will on Tuesday discuss setting up a blacklist of worldwide tax havens, EU officials said, after leaked documents from an offshore law firm exposed new high-profile cases of tax avoidance. The decision to include the subject in the monthly meeting's...

Ben Affleck says the storm of sexual harassment allegations engulfing Hollywood has led him to examine his own behavior. In an interview Sunday with The Associated Press for the superhero film "Justice League," Affleck said he's "looking at my own behavior ad addressing that and making...

Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz received resigned Lebanese Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri on Monday, Al Arabiya News Channel reported. Hariri quit on Saturday, saying he believed there was an assassination plot against him and accusing Iran with its Lebanese ally Hezbollah of sowing...

Hoi An (Vietnam) (AFP) - At least 49 people have died after Typhoon Damrey slammed into central Vietnam, disaster officials said Monday, as heavy flooding cast doubt on a planned retreat for APEC leaders' spouses to the ancient town of Hoi An. The weather system hit just days before...