Iran on Monday confirmed 217 additional fatalities from the novel coronavirus, bringing the nationwide death toll to 14,405. A further 2,414 people tested positive for COVID-19 in the last 24 hours, raising the overall count to 276,202, Health Ministry spokeswoman Sima Sadat Lari said....

A forest fire which broke out in northwestern Turkey Monday afternoon continues but has been brought under control, said local officials.  No casualties have been reported so far from the blaze, which erupted in Kemalkoy in the Canakkale province. A total of 130 firefighters, 20...

 Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi and US President Donald Trump agreed Monday on the need to maintain a ceasefire in Libya and avoid an escalation between the forces fighting there, Egypt's presidency said. Sisi and Trump spoke by telephone as Egypt's parliament went into a...

A young emergency doctor Monday became Lebanon's first medic to die of coronavirus, state media said, as daily infections rise in the eastern Mediterranean country. Loay Ismail, 32, "died from coronavirus at the Nabih Berri hospital in Nabatiyeh", southern Lebanon, the National News Agency...

The US Commerce Department on Monday announced it has blacklisted 11 Chinese businesses for involvement in human rights violations against the Uighur minority, cutting off the firms' access to American goods. Washington, together with other western nations and rights groups, has accused...

The Ballon d'Or will not be awarded this year for the first time in its 64-year history after the COVID-19 pandemic wreaked havoc on the football calendar, organizers France Football magazine said Monday. The prestigious award, voted for by journalists, is an annual prize given to the best...

Israel is investigating the Palestinian governor of Jerusalem over suspected terrorism, in the first such allegation against the often-arrested leader, his lawyer said Monday. Adnan Ghaith has been arrested by Israeli security forces more than 10 times over the past two years, but typically...

 Investigators examining the black boxes from the Ukrainian jet accidentally shot down by Iran have recovered its cockpit voice data, France's BEA accident investigation bureau said. Iranian forces say they brought down the Ukraine International Airlines (UIA) jet, a Boeing 737, on...

German biotech firm BioNTech and US drugmaker Pfizer Monday reported additional data from their experimental COVID-19 vaccine that showed it was safe and induced an immune response in patients. BioNtech's US shares gained 12 percent, while Pfizer's stock rose 3.6 percent in early trading....

The chance discovery of lines carved into the boulders of an ancient tomb in what is now the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights could offer new insight into an enigmatic culture that thrived thousands of years ago. Between yellow weeds and shaded by eucalyptus trees, huge dark basalt boulders...

President Vladimir Putin named a new acting governor to head Russia's Far Eastern region of Khabarovsk Monday after the previous regional head was arrested on murder charges, sparking a wave of protests. At least 10,000 people demonstrated in Khabarovsk Saturday to demand Moscow release...

Turkey Monday urged an "immediate" end to the support for rebel commander Khalifa Haftar in Libya after trilateral talks held in Ankara between Libyan, Maltese and Turkish officials. Turkey earlier this year stepped up its support for the Tripoli-based Government of National Accord (GNA)...

Sudan's former autocratic president Omar al-Bashir, ousted amid a popular pro-democracy uprising last year, faces trial from Tuesday over the military coup that brought him to power more than three decades ago. Bashir, 76, who is already behind bars for corruption, could face the death...

The coronavirus pandemic threw tens of millions of Americans out of work, ended the longest US economic recovery on record and undermined a key argument for President Donald Trump's re-election. Now, the Republican president and his Democratic opponent in the Nov. 3 election, Joe Biden,...

Egypt’s parliament is to vote Monday to authorize the president to deploy troops to neighboring Libya if Turkey-backed forces there, allied with the UN-supported government in Tripoli, move to retake the strategic coastal city of Sirte. An Egyptian intervention would further destabilize...

 Iranian police said Monday they had arrested people behind protests that broke out last week in the southwest of the country, state news agency IRNA reported. "All the perpetrators of an illegal and norm-breaking gathering in Behbahan (city) were identified and arrested," Khuzestan...

French authorities have reported 400 to 500 active coronavirus outbreak clusters but there are no signs of an imminent "second wave," Health Minister Olivier Veran said Monday. Many of the current virus clusters involve abattoirs or other contained professional settings such as old age...

Saudi Arabia’s King Salman has been admitted to a hospital in the capital, Riyadh, for medical tests due to inflammation of the gallbladder, the kingdom’s Royal Court said Monday in a statement carried by the official Saudi Press Agency. The statement said the 84-year-old monarch is being...

US rapper Kanye West broke down in tears Sunday at the chaotic launch of his unlikely campaign to oust Donald Trump as president in November elections. Wearing a bullet-proof jacket marked "security," West gave a rambling speech in which he claimed he had wanted his wife, Kim Kardashian, to...

Afghans shared accounts of violence linked to the Taliban on social media with the hashtag phrase 'don't redeem the Taliban' with anxiety growing as the United States prepares to withdraw troops and attempts to usher peace talks with the militant group. The accounts of alleged violence and...