BEIRUT (AP) — The World Bank approved a $246 million loan to Lebanon to provide emergency cash assistance to nearly 800,000 Lebanese reeling under the country’s compounded economic and health crises. The World Bank said in a statement late Tuesday the loan would also support the development...

Iran’s military launched a short-range naval missile drill on Wednesday, Iranian state TV reported, at a time of high tension between arch foes Tehran and Washington. Iran has one of the biggest missile programmes in the Middle East, regarding such weapons as an important deterrent and...

A refugee who fled war in the Middle East claims "life in Hull is the same as in Iraq" due to her 'squalid' living conditions. Wheelchair user Intesar Hassan, 55, and her four children fled war in both Iraq and Syria before being moved to Hull by the United Nations in 2012. But since...

The World Bank approved a US$246 million new project to provide emergency cash transfers and access to social services to approximately 786,000 poor and vulnerable Lebanese reeling under the pressure of Lebanon’s economic and COVID-19 crises, the World Bank reported in a press release. The...

JERUSALEM (AP) — A leading Israeli human rights group has begun describing both Israel and its control of the Palestinian territories as a single "apartheid" regime, using an explosive term that the country's leaders and their supporters vehemently reject. In a report released Tuesday,...

BEIRUT (AP) — Lebanon will file an urgent complaint with the United Nations against Israel's daily violations of its airspace amid intensifying drone reconnaissance and mock raids around the country, the president's office said Tuesday. President Michel Aoun called for a condemnation of...

Filming on his phone inside Egypt’s Hussainiya hospital, Ahmed Mamdouh pans around the ward to show beds occupied by motionless bodies. “All the people are dead,” he says. Mamdouh’s own relative had just died, for which he blames a lack of medical oxygen. In another video, a screaming woman...

BEIRUT (AP) — Lebanese authorities tightened a nationwide lockdown Monday, including an 11-day, 24-hour curfew, amid a dramatic surge in coronavirus infections and growing criticism of uncoordinated policies many blame for the spread of the virus. News of the restrictions to be implemented...

Palestinian Prime Minister Muhammad Shtayyeh vowed Monday to sue countries that import goods manufactured inside illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank. “Dealing with [Israeli] settlements is against international law,” Shtayyeh told a weekly cabinet meeting in the West...

At least two people were assassinated in as many days, with 43 injured, including safety members, and 30 arrested in protests in Zikar province Iraq, according to the country's top human-rights watchdog. In addition to assassinations and kidnappings, security forces' use of tear gas,...

Iraq voiced surprise Saturday after the US Treasury imposed "unacceptable" sanctions against Faleh Fayyadh, leader of the state-sponsored Hashed al-Shaabi, a powerful pro-Iranian paramilitary network. Fayyadh is one of the most senior Iraqi state officials to be placed on the US...

A Palestinian political leader jailed for the past 18 years was released from an Israeli prison on Thursday night. Hassan Fatafta, leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, was arrested in 2003 over accusations that he was planning assassinations of Israelis....

At least seven Palestinians were injured and dozens of others suffered suffocation in the occupied West Bank on Friday as the Israeli army used rubber bullets and tear gas to disperse protesters, eyewitnesses said. Speaking to Anadolu Agency, the eyewitnesses said dozens of Palestinians...

Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei on Friday said the COVID-19 vaccines produced in the US and the UK are banned in Iran, asserting he does not trust their efficacy. His remarks came during a televised speech on the occasion marking the 42nd anniversary of the uprising against the...

The Lebanese government imposed a new lockdown Monday that is set to last from Jan. 7 until Feb. 1, in a bid to to curb the dangerous spread of coronavirus as the holiday season comes to a close.

Turkey's exports reached $169.5 billion in 2020, the trade minister announced Tuesday, citing preliminary data. The headline figure, despite the severe economic contraction and shrinking in foreign demand in our export markets, especially the in EU, is the exporters' success, Ruhsar Pekcan...

Samples of the CoronaVac vaccine brought to Turkey’s capital last week, are under tests in the Health Ministry labs for emergency use approvals, said the ministry on Tuesday. The samples of the vaccine, developed by China’s Sinovac Biotech, which were brought on Dec. 30, 2020, are tested in...

Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama will pay an official visit to Turkey on Jan. 6 on Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's invitation, Turkey's Communications Directorate said on Tuesday. In a statement, the directorate said bilateral relations between Turkey and Albania as well as steps...

The densely populated Gaza Strip has long lacked sufficient drinking water, but a new project helps ease the shortage with a solar-powered process to extract potable water straight from the air. Unusually, the project operating in the Islamist-run Palestinian enclave, which has been...

One is a headscarf-wearing cleaning lady from the poor suburbs of Istanbul, the other a jet-setting psychiatrist who breaks glass ceilings and harbours suspicions about conservative Islam. Together, the two women make for a compelling story in a hit Netflix series that has pushed...