Thousands of Turks gathered near Hagia Sophia early on Friday for the first prayers there since President Tayyip Erdogan declared the monument, revered by Christians and Muslims for almost 1,500 years, a mosque once again. Crowds formed at checkpoints surrounding the historic heart of...

Turkey’s president on Thursday unveiled the new nameplate for Hagia Sophia Mosque, the Istanbul icon due to reopen for prayers tomorrow for the first time in 86 years. Following a meeting on military matters in the capital Ankara, Recep Tayyip Erdogan and a delegation unveiled the...

Lebanon's central bank governor inflated the institution's assets by over $6 billion in 2018, its audited annual accounts show, underlining the extent of financial engineering used to help prop up the country's economy. The financial statements for 2018, a copy of which was seen by Reuters,...

Israel freed Thursday a senior leader of Hamas in the West Bank after imprisoning him without trial for 16 months, his son said. Hassan Yousef, a co-founder of the Palestinian Islamist group, was arrested on April 2 last year at his home near Ramallah in the occupied territory. "He is...