Iraq’s rival parties were negotiating the contours of a new government Monday, after the previous Cabinet was brought down by a two-month protest insisting on even more deep-rooted change. After just over a year in power, premier Adel Abdel-Mahdi formally resigned Sunday after a...

At least 208 people are believed to have been killed during a crackdown on protests in Iran last month that followed a sharp fuel price hike, Amnesty International said Monday. “The number of people believed to have been killed during demonstrations in Iran that broke out on Nov. 15 has...

An indictment submitted to Israel’s parliament on Monday against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu names more than 300 prosecution witnesses, including wealthy friends and former aides, in three graft cases against him. By formally sending the indictment to the legislature, after announcing...

Turkey is not blackmailing NATO with its rejection of a defence plan for the Baltics and Poland, and has full veto rights within the alliance, a Turkish security source said on Monday ahead of a NATO alliance summit in London. Reuters reported last week that Turkey was refusing to back a...

Iran's top diplomat Mohammad Javad Zarif voiced support on Monday for reducing tensions in the Gulf as he hosted his counterpart from traditional mediator Oman for talks in Tehran. The visit by Oman's minister of state for foreign affairs, Yusuf bin Alawi, came a week after he held a...

Iran is stilling its oil despite U.S. sanctions on Tehran's exports, the country's Vice President Eshaq Jahangiri was quoted on Monday as saying by state TV, adding that Washington's "maximum pressure" on Tehran had failed. "Despite America's pressure ... and its imposed sanctions on our...

Iraq's rival parties were negotiating the contours of a new government on Monday, after the previous cabinet was brought down by a two-month protest movement demanding more deep-rooted change. After just over a year in power, premier Adel Abdel Mahdi stepped down last week after a dramatic...

Thirteen Pakistanis, including eight children, died when a fire swept through their makeshift dwellings on a farming estate in the Jordan Valley, Jordan's civil defence said Monday. There were three other injuries in the fire that broke out after midnight that initial signs showed could...

U.S. President Donald Trump spoke on Sunday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about Iran and other issues, the White House said in a brief statement. “The leaders discussed the threat from Iran, as well as other critical bilateral and regional issues,” the White House said in...

Iraq has been rocked by two months of anti-government protests that brought down premier Adel Abdel Mahdi on Sunday, but its lucrative oil industry has been curiously insulated from the turmoil. AFP looks at how the energy industry of OPEC's second-largest producer has weathered the latest...

Angry protesters set fire to the house of the military commander of Dhi Qar province in southern Iraq on Sunday, according to a local police source.    "Hundreds of demonstrators burned the house of Jameel al-Shimmary, who was tasked with handling security in the province," the...

Israeli Defense Minister Naftali Bennett has approved the construction of a new settlement in the flashpoint West Bank city of Hebron. In a statement, Bennet's office said the defense minister had ordered the relevant offices within the ministry to "inform the Hebron municipality that...

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Sunday denounced six new European members of a barter mechanism with Iran, saying it encouraged Tehran's repression of protests. "While the Iranian regime is killing its own people, European countries rush to support that very murderous regime," the...

 Pope Francis on Sunday criticized Iraq’s crackdown on anti-government protests, which have led to the deaths of more than 400 people since they erupted in Baghdad and other cities in October. “I am following the situation in Iraq with concern. It is with pain that I have learned of...

Israel's new hard-right defence minister Sunday ordered officials to start planning a new Jewish settlement in the heart of the divided West Bank city of Hebron. The announcement came as the prospects of a third snap election since May loomed larger, with Defence Minister Naftali Bennett's...

An Irish citizen aligned to Islamic State deported from Turkey along with her two-year-old daughter was arrested Sunday on her return to Dublin on suspicion of terrorist offences, Irish police said. Ireland agreed to repatriate Lisa Smith, 38, and her two-year-old daughter after Ankara...

Iraq's parliament approved the resignation of the embattled cabinet on Sunday, after two months of violent unrest that have left more than 420 people dead and thousands mourning them in nationwide marches. Prime Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi said Friday he would submit his resignation to...

Iraqi protesters set fire to the entrance of a shrine in the southern holy city of Najaf on Saturday and security forces fired tear gas to disperse them, police and a demonstrator at the scene said, risking more bloodshed after a rare day of calm. The demonstrator sent a video to Reuters of...

A senior Iranian official has suggested in an interview with AFP that authorities may be more open than in the past in approving candidates for a looming parliamentary election. "We don't consider ourselves immune from criticism. We may also accept that mistakes have been made in the past,"...

Iranian opposition leader Mirhossein Mousavi has compared Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to the Shah, the monarch deposed in a 1979 revolution, following the government’s crackdown on protests this month. The unrest began on Nov. 15 after the government of the Islamic Republic, one...