British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said Thursday he believed sanctions against Venezuelan "kleptocrats" could be a way to pressure President Nicolas Maduro to call new elections. He said he would raise the issue later in the day with his European Union counterparts at a meeting in...

Retired Israeli general Benny Gantz's new party has surged in opinion polls since his maiden speech, positing him as the most significant political threat to incumbent premier Benjamin Netanyahu. But despite the leap in the number of seats his Israel Resilience party is expected to win in...

The Yellow Vest protests in the French capital Paris, which have been continuing since mid-November, have spread to southern and western parts of the country. The protests are regarded as the greatest crisis since President Emmanuel Macron has assumed his office; although he organized...

The European Union ended 2018 with an unemployment rate of 6.6 percent, the EU's statistical office reported on Thursday. On a yearly basis, the unemployment rate in the EU fell 0.6 percentage points compared to 7.2 percent in December, 2017. "Eurostat estimates that 16.3 million men...

A team of former U.S. government intelligence operatives working for the United Arab Emirates hacked into the iPhones of activists, diplomats and rival foreign leaders with the help of a sophisticated spying tool called Karma, in a campaign that shows how potent cyberweapons are proliferating...

A U.S.-born anchor for Iran’s state-run Press TV arrived in Iran Wednesday after 10 days of detention in the United States, Press TV reported. The anchor, Marzieh Hashemi, testified as a material witness in an undisclosed federal investigation, a U.S. federal court order said last Thursday...

Mohamed ElBaradei, who briefly served as vice-president following Egypt’s 2013 military coup, has decried the country’s human rights situation under President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi's rule.  In a Thursday tweet, ElBaradei, who served as director-general of the International Atomic Energy...

The family of a Navy cryptologist who was killed in Syria earlier this year in a suicide bombing is fighting an obscure regulation they say derailed her education plans and ultimately led to her fifth combat deployment in the war-torn country. Chief Petty Officer Shannon Mary Kent, 35,...

China will relax rules on IPOs for a planned Nasdaq-style tech board in Shanghai as it seeks to encourage start-ups to list at home after losing the likes of Alibaba and Baidu to Wall Street. Existing rules on initial public offerings ban companies from listing unless they have a track...

Malaysia on Thursday installed a new king, Sultan Abdullah Sultan Ahmad Shah, after the last monarch abdicated in a historic first following his reported marriage to a Russian ex-beauty queen. In a ceremony steeped in pomp and centuries of tradition, the sports-loving sultan, dressed in...

The Kabul government is steadily losing its grip over parts of Afghanistan even as American forces intensify their air campaign against insurgent groups, a US government watchdog said Thursday. The latest grim assessment of Afghanistan's security situation comes as the US pursues talks with...

enezuelan authorities have detained five foreign journalists covering the standoff with opposition forces seeking the ouster of President Nicolas Maduro. Two others, from Chile, were deported as the crisis spilled over to hit journalists covering the oil-rich but economically crippled...

Saudi Arabia has ended a sprawling crackdown on corruption ordered by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman that it said had recovered more than $106 billion through settlements with scores of senior princes, ministers and top businessmen. A royal court statement said the government had summoned...

Nearly 5,000 people leave Venezuela every day, the UN Refugee Agency said Wednesday. Joung-ah Ghedini-Williams, a spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), said at a press conference at UN headquarters that Venezuelans are leaving the country because of "instability...

A bipartisan group of lawmakers from both chambers of Congress reintroduced legislation Wednesday that could halt U.S. support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen. The war powers resolution already passed the Senate in December but failed to gain traction in the then-Republican-controlled House,...

 (Zaman Al Wasl)- The Syrian pound (Lira) weakened against the U.S. dollar on Wednesday despite regime promises to revive the economy following the sign of  'strategic economy deals with Iran. The dollar was up 0.30 percent at 530 S.P in two weeks. Bashar al-Assad on...

A U.S. intelligence report has claimed challenges facing South Asia will grow in 2019 because of elections in India and Afghanistan and Pakistan’s “non-cooperation” in dealing with militant groups. World Threat Assessment report by the U.S. Directorate of National Intelligence noted...

An Israeli minister on Wednesday threatened to ban human rights group Amnesty International from the country for its criticism of some tourism companies. Gilad Erdan, the minister of public security, accused the rights group of promoting a boycott against Israelis. “I have instructed...

The governor of the Irish central bank, Philip Lane, is the only candidate to take over the highly influential role of chief economist of the ECB, a Eurogroup statement said Wednesday. Barring a major upset, Lane, who holds a PhD in economics, will take over from Belgian Peter Praet on May...

The French government is under growing pressure to follow other European countries in banning controversial rubber-ball launchers used by riot police amid a spate of serious injuries suffered by Yellow Vest protesters. France’s legal advisory body, the Council of State, was due to examine...