Oman's health minister said Thursday that the sultanate had witnessed a "scary" surge in COVID-19 cases that required boosting hospital capacity, especially for intensive care units. The country reported 1,361 new cases of the coronavirus Thursday with three deaths in the last 24 hours, to...

An Algerian court on Thursday granted prominent opposition figure and leader of the anti-government protest movement Karim Tabbou release from jail. Tabbou’s lawyer, Abdelghani Badi, said in a Facebook post that the Algiers court granted his request for the release of his client, who is...

Oil prices rose on Thursday as a sharp drop in oil stockpiles outweighed concerns that a spike in U.S. coronavirus infections and revived lockdown measures in California could stall a recovery in fuel demand. Brent crude LCOc1 futures were up 21 cents or 0.5% at $42.24 a barrel by 1114 GMT,...

 A former UN envoy to Libya has accused the Security Council of "hypocrisy" and of undermining his efforts to bring peace to the war-torn North African country. In a podcast interview aired Tuesday, Ghassan Salame said the majority of the UN Security Council supported the military...