A Lebanese prosecutor Monday grilled bankers over more than 2 billion dollars in capital flight in past months despite strict banking restrictions in the crisis-hit country, judicial sources said. Banks have since September imposed increasingly tight limits on dollar withdrawals and...

The death toll from coronavirus in Iran has climbed to 66, the Health Ministry announced Monday. Deputy Health Minister Alireza Reisi said 12 more people died from the disease as 523 new cases were reported across the country over the past 24 hours, bringing the total number of infections...

Israeli President Reuven Rivlin condemned what he called an "awful and grubby" election campaign as he cast his ballot on Monday, urging an end to political "instability." "We don't deserve another awful and grubby election campaign like the one that ends today and we don't deserve this...

Iranian state radio says a member of a council that advises Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has died after after falling ill from the new coronavirus. The report Monday said Expediency Council member Mohammad Mirmohammadi had died. He was 71. The council advises Khamenei,...

 Iraqi security forces killed one person and wounded 24 at an anti-government protest in Baghdad Sunday, a police source said. The person was killed by birdshot fired from a hunting rifle and some of the injuries were caused by birdshot and tear gas, the source added.

 On the eve of Israel’s third election in a year, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been urging supporters to mount a final push to win the one or two more seats he says he needs to form a government. But as he campaigns, another force in Israeli politics - the Arab minority - is...

Lebanon’s banking lobby made a last-ditch appeal to the government to avoid a debt default and instead offer a swap into new notes for all bondholders. In the clutches of its worst financial crisis in decades, Lebanon is running out of time to decide how to handle a debt burden that...

Lebanon’s health ministry said on Sunday three more people had tested positive for coronavirus after arriving from Iran, bringing the total in the country to 10. The three patients, who had been in isolation at home, were quarantined at a Beirut hospital after showing symptoms, the ministry...

Iran’s death toll from the new coronavirus has reached 54, Health Ministry spokesman Kianush Jahanpur told state TV, adding the number of those infected had reached 978. “There were 385 new cases of infected people in the last 24 hours, increasing the total number to 978. The death toll is...

Migrants trickled through permeable borders to Greece from Turkey on Sunday as thousands gathered on the country’s frontier seeking entry after Ankara relaxed curbs on their movement. At first light, dozens of people in three dinghies made their way to the Aegean island of Lesbos, a Reuters...

Israel heads into its unprecedented third election in less than a year Monday after a tumultuous campaign that saw the prime minister indicted on corruption charges, President Donald Trump release his much-anticipated Mideast plan and various mergers and machinations that reshuffled Israel’s...

Iraq has detected five new cases of coronavirus, four in Baghdad and one in Babel province, the Health Ministry said on Saturday, taking the total number of cases in the country to 13. The patients were placed in quarantine, the ministry said in a statement. On Wednesday Iraq banned...

Iran Saturday dismissed as "rumours" a report that coronavirus has killed more than 200 people in the country, one of the hardest hit by the disease, with senior officials among those infected. Since it announced its first coronavirus deaths, Iran has scrambled to bring the outbreak under...

Lebanon announced on Friday it was closing the country’s schools effective Feb. 29 until March 8 as a precautionary measure against the spread of coronavirus, an education ministry statement said. Lebanon on Friday confirmed the country’s fourth case of the virus and has restricted...

Leading Israeli Arab politician Ayman Odeh has made US President Donald Trump and his controversial peace plan the main target of his campaign for Tuesday's general election. "We have an opportunity to defeat the Trump plan in these elections," said Ayman Odeh, head of the mainly Arab Joint...

A former housekeeper at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's official residence is suing the leader's wife Sara for pain and suffering allegedly caused during her employment there, the housekeeper's attorney said Thursday. Opheer Shimson says his client is demanding $190,000 in...

Eight MPs from Germany's radical-left Left party said Thursday they had filed a criminal complaint against Chancellor Angela Merkel and her ministers, accusing them of complicity in the US killing of Iranian general Qasem Soleimani. Their complaint relates to the US Air Force's massive...

Iraq announced the first confirmed case of coronavirus in the capital Baghdad on Thursday, taking nationwide infections to six and raising concerns about the capacity of the dilapidated health system to respond. The government announced sweeping measures late Wednesday to try to contain the...

Western European powers stepped up efforts on Wednesday to try to save a 2015 deal to curb Iran's nuclear ambitions -- on life support since a 2018 decision by the US to withdraw and reimpose sanctions. Officials from Britain, France and Germany began a meeting in Vienna -- the first since...

President Hassan Rouhani accused the United States on Wednesday of trying to spread "fear" in Iran over a deadly outbreak of the novel coronavirus. Coronavirus has claimed the lives of 19 people among 139 infections in Iran, including the deputy health minister -- making it the deadliest...