Russia's "Sputnik-V" COVID-19 vaccine produced an antibody response in all participants in early-stage trials, according to results published Friday by The Lancet medical journal that were hailed by Moscow as an answer to its critics. The results of the two trials, conducted in June-July...

Senior officials in British Prime Minister Boris Johnson's office see only a 30 to 40 percent chance that there will be a Brexit trade agreement with the European Union due to an impasse over state aid rules, The Times reported. The United Kingdom left the EU on Jan. 31, turning its back...

The Palestinian group Hamas on Friday criticized Bahrain for opening its airspace to flights between the United Arab Emirates and Israel. "The help of some countries to the UAE in implementing its normalization agreement with Tel Aviv, supports the [Israeli] occupation to implement its...

Italy's former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, in hospital after testing positive for coronavirus, has been diagnosed with the early stages of double pneumonia, ANSA newsagency reported Friday. Double, or bilateral, pneumonia affects both lungs and can make breathing difficult. The...

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis Friday said Turkey should drop "threats" against his country if talks on reducing tension in the eastern Mediterranean are to begin. "Let threats go away so that the contacts can begin," Mitsotakis said as he met a visiting senior member of the...

Bahrain said late Thursday it had agreed to allow UAE flights to and from Israel to overfly the kingdom, a day after a similar decision was announced by Saudi Arabia. The announcements come after a US-Israeli delegation visited Abu Dhabi Monday, on the first direct commercial flight from...

New Zealand recorded its first coronavirus death in more than three months on Friday when a man in his 50s succumbed to the virus. Health officials said the man was part of a second-wave cluster of infections that emerged in Auckland last month, ending a spell of 102 days free of community...

Joe Biden told residents of Kenosha, Wisconsin, that recent turmoil following the police shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man, could help Americans confront centuries of systemic racism, drawing a sharp contrast with President Donald Trump amid a reckoning that has galvanized the nation....

Near Madrid airport, an army of cranes works round the clock to build a new pandemic hospital which is expected to open in November. But a second wave of the Covid-19 outbreak is already under way in Spain, straining the capital's public health care system. Around 400 builders have been...

Oil futures dropped on Friday, with prices on both sides of the Atlantic heading for their biggest weekly declines since June, as lacklustre demand and ample fuel supplies offset support from a weaker dollar. Brent crude LCOc1 fell 33 cents, or, 0.8% to $43.74 a barrel by 0630 GMT. The...

Rescue workers in Beirut dug through the rubble of a collapsed building with their hands on Friday after signs of life were detected under a mound of debris one month after a huge explosion shattered the capital. A group of workers pulled up chunks of concrete and other broken masonry as...

The lead investigator of the catastrophic blast at the Lebanese capital's port heard testimony from outgoing prime minister Hassan Diab on Thursday. Diab became the first senior politician to testify before judicial authorities, who are not entitled to question incumbents in government or...

Israel will impose a partial national lockdown next week to battle a coronavirus infection surge, the head of its pandemic task force said Thursday, shouting his exasperation in an emotional television address. The health official, Ronni Gamzu, said Israel was facing a "pivotal moment" in...

Lewis Hamilton on Thursday urged people to continue discussing their mental health and said, based on his personal experience, that it was a strength and not a weakness for people to show their vulnerability. The championship leader and six-time world champion said he experienced "difficult...

Foreign minister Dominic Raab discussed the Middle East peace process on Thursday with Jared Kushner, U.S. President Donald Trump’s senior adviser, a British statement said. “They welcomed the historic Israel-UAE normalisation deal, and discussed wider US efforts to facilitate the...

 Lebanon’s army said on Thursday it had found 4.35 tonnes of ammonium nitrate near the entrance to Beirut port, the site of a huge blast last month caused by a large stockpile of the same highly explosive chemical. Army engineers were “dealing with it,” according to an army statement...

Thousands of Moroccans who once crossed into Spanish enclaves on the North African coast to work every day are struggling after six months of border closures due to coronavirus restrictions. "Everything is at a standstill," said 43-year-old Mohamed Bouhlal, who worries how to pay his rent....

The US on Thursday called Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's decision to pardon more than 100 political opponents ahead of parliamentary elections a "farce." "The Maduro regime’s announcement of conditional dismissal of criminal charges against roughly one-third of the political...

Tunisian Parliament Speaker Rached Ghannouchi said on Thursday his country needs social and political stability to deal with the challenges it is facing, voicing a better tomorrow for his country because of its "culture of freedom and democracy". Ghannouchi, who heads Ennahda Movement, made...

France's intelligence chief has joined efforts to push Lebanon to deliver a new government and reforms, Lebanese sources said Thursday, buttressing President Emmanuel Macron's bid to pull the country out of a devastating economic crisis. Macron is centre stage in international efforts to...