Major retailers in Lebanon announced Thursday they will temporarily shut down in the face of an increasingly volatile currency market and their inability to set prices while the Lebanese pound plunges against the dollar. Later in the day, owners of the businesses rallied in central Beirut...

 Italian police said on Wednesday they had seized about 14 tonnes of amphetamine pills worth around 1 billion euros ($1 billion) arriving from Syria, in what they described as the world's single largest operation of its kind. Investigators said they impounded three container ships that...

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Tuesday urged the UN Security Council to extend an arms embargo on Iran, warning that the Middle East's stability was at risk, but he faced wide skepticism over US threats to trigger sanctions. The United States is adamant about prolonging the ban on...

The Lebanese army has scrapped meat from all meals it offers to soldiers on duty as food prices skyrocket because of a deepening economic crisis, state media said Tuesday. Lebanon is in the throes of its worst economic downturn since the 1975-1990 civil war, with poverty surging to now...