When electricity was cut to Yemen’s capital four years ago after war broke out, Ebrahim al-Faqih saw a gap in the market and started selling solar panels. Faqih is part of a booming solar sector transforming lives and energy sustainability in Yemen, a poor country with scant rural...

Lebanon slipped deeper into political crisis on Sunday after the withdrawal of a top candidate for prime minister narrowed the chances of creating a government needed to enact urgent reforms. Mohammad Safadi, a former finance minister, withdrew his candidacy late on Saturday, saying it was...

Sri Lanka's election commission declared former defense secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa as the winner of the presidential election on Sunday. Rajapaksa won 52.25 percent of the votes, while his main rival and government minister Sajith Premadasa received 41.99 percent, the election commission...

Authorities have restricted internet access in Iran, the semi-official ISNA news agency said on Sunday, after nearly two days of nationwide protests triggered by a petrol price hike. "Access to the internet has been limited as of last night and for the next 24 hours," an informed source at...

Iraqis flooded the streets of the capital and southern cities on Sunday in a general strike that bolstered the weeks-long movement demanding a government overhaul. Sit-ins have become the go-to tactic for the rallies that erupted in early October in rage over corruption, a lack of jobs and...

In recent weeks, some American troops have moved from Syria to Iraq. Airmen have moved from the United States to an airbase in the UAE, and up to two thousand more U.S. soldiers are headed to Saudi Arabia. All of this is on top of the continued presence in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia,...

 (Zaman Al Wasl)- Russia’s strategic cargo aircraft, Antonov An-225 Mriya, has landed in Qamishli airport, carrying military ammunition and equipments, sources told Zaman al-Wasl. The Russian deployment comes less than a month after U.S. forces withdrawing from the area were...

French police arrested 254 people during clashes in Paris and other cities on the first anniversary of the "yellow vest" movement, Interior Minister Christophe Castaner said Sunday. The violence in Paris, where police battled rioters for hours around the southeastern Place d'Italie square,...

Protesters shot arrows and lobbed petrol bombs at police on Sunday as fresh violence erupted around a besieged Hong Kong university campus, with activists braced for a possible final police push to clear them after fiery clashes overnight. Police countered with dyed jets of liquid from...

A Sudanese court will deliver its verdict in December in the trial of deposed President Omar al-Bashir on charges of corruption, according to judicial sources Saturday. The criminal court set Dec. 14 as date for the verdict, al-Bashir’s lawyer, Mohamed Hasan al-Amin, told reporters after...

North Korea said Sunday nuclear issues will not be discussed when talks with the United States restart unless the withdrawal of U.S. "hostile policy" was put on the agenda, state media reported. The North's foreign ministry said in a statement carried by the official KCNA news agency that...

Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Sunday voiced support for a decision to impose petrol price hikes and rationing that sparked protests across the Islamic republic. "I am not an expert and there are different opinions but I had said that if the heads of the three branches make...

Saudi Arabia on Sunday put a value of up to $1.71 trillion on energy giant Aramco in what could be the world's biggest IPO, but missed Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's initial target of $2 trillion. Aramco said it would sell 1.5 percent of the company in a blockbuster initial public...

(Zaman Al Wasl)- Teachers of opposition-held Aleppo countryside continue to strike for the sixth day in a row, due to the lack of support for the education sector, some of them have not received a salary for the past 8 months. Ali Abdel Karim, a teacher in Harem town, said...

Tens of pro-Iran recruits have joined IRGC’s training camps in Deir Ezzor as the eastern province turned into Iran’s powerful stronghold in the war-torn country, local monitoring network reported. Deir Ezzor 24 said Iran-run military camps in Mayadin city had received large number of...

At least four civilians were killed in Russian airstrikes in the Idlib de-escalation zone in northwestern Syria, a local civil defense agency said on Saturday.  The Russian warplanes carried out airstrikes on the Idlib villages of Ma’rzita, Maaret Hurmah and Uraynibah, according...

(Zaman Al Wasl)- The Syrian regime’s Central Bureau of Statistics estimated the number of Syrians living in Syria at more than 25 million by the end of 2018, an increase from about 21 million in 2011 at the start of the war. The figures issued show that, contrary to the reports that the...

The last remains of 157 people killed aboard an Ethiopian Airlines plane in March were interred at the crash site this week, farmers and families told Reuters, but some relatives were upset they had been unable to take part in the ceremony. Nadia Milleron, whose daughter Samya Stumo was...

Polls have closed in Sri Lanka where elections were held Saturday for a new president of the tourism-dependent island nation still struggling to recover from the Easter Sunday militant attacks which killed more than 250 people. A convoy of buses carrying Muslim voters was shot at just...

The exchange of three senior Taliban prisoners for two foreign hostages announced by Afghan President Ashraf Ghani has been delayed, a spokesman said Saturday. The Taliban prisoners "are still being held by the Afghan government. The inability of the Taliban to meet the conditions has...