A majority of Lebanese parliamentarians may submit blank voting slips on Wednesday in the first ballot for a new president, political sources said, as they struggle to agree on a consensus candidate after months of violence and political deadlock. Parliament has been summoned to...
France will unveil a plan to stop the stream of French youths joining jihadist groups in Syria, with a new focus on preventing radicalization. President Francois Hollande said Tuesday that France will take "all kinds of measures to dissuade, to stop, to punish those who would be...
Egyptian property developer SODIC swung to a net loss of 447.1 million Egyptian pounds ($64 million) last year, due to one-off items including a write-down on its investments in Syria, managing director Ahmed Badrawi told Reuters on Tuesday. The company had made a net profit of 257...
Israel said on Tuesday it was stepping up efforts to encourage military enlistment by Christian Arab citizens, a community long closer to the larger Muslim minority in identifying with the Palestinians. Israel's Christian Arabs number about 160,000, some two percent of the...
Euro zone consumer confidence rose 0.6 points month-on-month to -8.7 in April, beating market expectations, the European Commission said in its first estimate on Tuesday. Economists polled by Reuters had expected an improvement to 9.0. For the whole of the 28-nation...
U.S. stocks rose on Tuesday, with both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq on track for a sixth straight day of gains as a number of bellwether companies reported strong results. Netflix Inc ( NFLX.O ) surged 7.1 percent to $373.13 a day after results showed strong subscriber...
A Tunisian diplomat kidnapped in Libya pleaded with his government to negotiate with his Islamist captors, according to a video released by an Islamist group on Sunday evening. Libyan Islamists have seized two Tunisian diplomats in the past month to demand the release of fellow...
A Saudi Arabian court on Sunday sentenced five men to death for their involvement in a suicide attack on expatriate residential compounds in Riyadh in 2003, the state news agency reported. Another 37 people were sentenced to terms of three to 35 years for assisting the attacks...
Asian stock markets were subdued on Monday, as tensions in Ukraine kept investors cautious amid an absence of catalysts as several markets remained closed for the Easter holiday. MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan inched down 0.1 percent. Japan's...
Russia's decision last week to sign a peace accord on Ukraine does not mean that the Kremlin is backing down, rather that President Vladimir Putin is prepared to be patient in pursuit of his ultimate objective. That aim, his own reflections and those of people close to...
The most senior Islamic cleric in Jerusalem said on Sunday Israeli police hurled stun grenades into al-Aqsa mosque, Islam's third holiest site, to quell the latest in a string of Palestinian protests at the politically sensitive holy site. Israeli police denied the...
Air strikes in southern Yemen killed about 30 suspected al Qaeda members on Sunday, local tribal sources said, in the second day of strikes against militant targets in the country. On Saturday an air strike killed 10 al Qaeda militants and three civilians in central Yemen , a...
Celebrating Easter Sunday, Christianity's most joyous and hopeful day, Pope Francis prayed for peace in Ukraine and Syria and for an end to the terrorist attacks in Nigeria that have targeted so many Christians. More than 150,000 tourists — Romans and pilgrims, young and old — had...
Iran says that a plane which landed in Tehran airport flying the American flag was leased to Ghana's presidential office and carrying a business delegation from the West African nation. The New York Times reported on Thursday that a plane owned by the Bank of Utah was...
An explosion in a car killed two people and wounded a third in a mostly Shi'ite village in Bahrain on Saturday, the Interior Ministry said. The ministry said on its Twitter account the explosion was in the village of al-Maqshaa', along the Budayya highway, outside of the...
Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who has been in power for 15 years and is confined to a wheelchair, has won a fourth term with 81.53 percent of the vote, Interior Minister Tayeb Belaiz announced on Friday. Bouteflika’s closest rival Ali Benflis, who came second with 12.18...
Gulf Arab states took a step towards resolving a severe rift in the U.S.-backed alliance on Thursday by agreeing on ways to implement a security agreement they reached last year. Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates withdrew their ambassadors from Qatar on March 5,...
President Barack Obama signed a law on Friday that effectively bars an Iranian diplomat from serving as an envoy at the United Nations because of suspicions he was involved in the 1979-81 Tehran hostage crisis. Obama signed a law passed by the U.S. Congress that blocks any...
The vice-principal of a South Korean high school who accompanied hundreds of pupils on a ferry that capsized has committed suicide, police said on Friday, as hopes faded of finding any of the 274 missing alive. The Sewol, carrying 476 passengers and crew, capsized on Wednesday...
Turkey's president appeared to rule himself out as a potential future prime minister on Friday, saying a "Putin-Medvedev model" under which he might swap roles with Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan was not suitable for Turkey . President Abdullah Gul's comments threw open the...
