Campaigning kicked off on Tuesday for a parliamentary election in Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region amid political divisions a year after hopes for independence were dashed. Around 673 candidates from 29 political movements have thrown their hats into the ring hoping to secure one of 111...

The European Union on Tuesday condemned death sentences passed on 75 people in Egypt, saying there were "serious doubts" over whether the defendants had been given a fair trial. An Egyptian court on Saturday confirmed the sentences, initially passed in July over clashes in 2013 between...

A senior Iranian security official said Tehran will respond to any hostile action against the country and said the era of "hit and run" was over, the semi-official Tasnim news agency reported on Monday. "The era of hit and run is over in the world and any hostile measure against our...

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi arrived Monday morning in Basra, the oil-rich southern city where protests over government neglect had escalated into deadly violence, his office said. After 12 protesters were killed and many of Basra's institutions torched last week, calm returned...

The United States has decided to close the Palestinian mission in Washington in the latest move against them by President Donald Trump, who has been trying to force the Palestinians to negotiate, a Palestinian official said Monday. "We have been notified by a US official of their decision to...

The two leading groups in Iraq's parliament Saturday called on Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to resign, after lawmakers held an emergency meeting on unrest shaking the country's south. "We demand the government apologize to the people and resign immediately," said Hassan al-Aqouli,...

An Egyptian court on Saturday sentenced 75 people to death, including top leaders of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, for their involvement in a 2013 protest that was broken up by security forces in an operation that killed at least 600 people. In a case involving 739 defendants facing charges...

An Egyptian court Saturday handed a five-year jail sentence to prominent photojournalist Mahmoud Abu Zeid, widely known as Shawkan, who earlier this year received UNESCO's World Freedom Prize. Shawkan was arrested in August 2013 as he covered deadly clashes in Cairo between security...

At least 12 people have been killed in several days of protests over the lack of public services in Iraq's southern city of Basra, the health ministry said on Saturday. Basra has seen a surge in protests since Tuesday, with demonstrators torching the Iranian consulate, government...

Iran's semiofficial Tasnim news agency is reporting that the country's Revolutionary Guard has killed six Kurdish militants and wounded several others in western Iran near the border with Iraq. Tasnim's report Friday described the Guard's assault as "revenge" for a July 20 attack that...

The families of two Israelis believed to be held captive in Gaza by its Hamas rulers demanded Thursday that the Islamist movement return their loved ones. Ethiopian-born Avera Mengistu was filmed by an Israeli security camera climbing the frontier fence with the Gaza Strip in September 2014....

High in the hills above the Mediterranean, Israeli troops worked while soldiers from a country still technically at war with them peered down from only metres above. The odd spectacle played out this week as Israel continued work on a new concrete wall along its northern border with...

Iran will begin uranium enrichment beyond previous levels if the remaining parties fail to uphold the 2015 nuclear deal, its Atomic Energy Organisation told local media on Wednesday. "We will not return to previous levels if our counterparts leave the JCPOA (nuclear deal), but will...

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered the closure of Israel's embassy in Paraguay, his office said, after the South American country announced Wednesday it was moving its mission back to Tel Aviv from Jerusalem. "The prime minister has asked the foreign ministry to close the...

A Jordanian court has sentenced an alleged Daesh (ISIS) member to 20 years of hard labor for a 2016 attack on security forces, an AFP correspondent at the trial said. The 25-year-old was charged with acquiring automatic weapons along with his two brothers and turning their house in...

Iraqi security forces sprayed tear gas and fired into the air to try to disperse thousands of protesters on Wednesday in the southern city of Basra, in some of the worst unrest in the region for months. The deaths of five protesters in clashes with security forces on Tuesday added to...

Egyptian security officials say they are investigating a suspected explosive device near the heavily fortified U.S. Embassy in the heart of Cairo, Egypt's capital. They say the device was spotted Tuesday outside the concrete barriers that encircle the embassy and the ambassador's...

Israel's defense minister said Monday that negotiations with Palestinians on the situation in both Gaza and the occupied West Bank were pointless and that the country should act unilaterally. Avigdor Lieberman's remarks came as Egypt and the United Nations were working to forge a...

The Iranian rial hit a record low against the U.S. dollar on the unofficial market Monday, amid a deterioration in the economic situation and the reimposition of sanctions by the United States. The dollar was being offered for as much as 128,000 rials, according to foreign exchange website...

Iraq's newly-elected parliament is meeting for the first time as rival factions compete over the right to name a new government. The parliament Monday opened its first session since national elections in May with an orchestral performance of the national anthem and a prayer....