A new report on the Gaza Strip by a United Nations (UN) agency makes for sobering reading. The UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) reports that the economic cost to Gaza of the Israeli siege since 2007, along with a series of major military assaults, amounts to no less than...

In 30 October, Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement expressing its deep pain and regret for the dozens of deaths and injuries in Izmir following an earthquake in western Turkey. Most observers paid little attention to the statement and considered it a customary...

Thousands of doctors, teachers and others in high-risk groups have signed up for COVID-19 vaccinations in Moscow starting Saturday, a precursor to a sweeping Russia-wide immunization effort. The vaccinations come three days after President Vladimir Putin ordered the launch of a...

In 2014, the remaining staff of the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas, or ICARDA, fled their beloved gene bank in Tel Hadia, 20 miles south of Aleppo. Syria’s civil war, which had broken out three years earlier, had finally made the staffing of the facility...