Moroccan authorities said Friday the navy had rescued 21 people after a boat carrying migrants sunk in the Mediterranean, with a rights group saying 45 others had drowned in the incident. Tangiers-based association Caminando Fronteras said survivors and relatives reported "45 people...

Huge crowds gathered Friday in Algeria's capital and other cities amid heavy security for a new wave of demonstrations that could be decisive for the protest movement calling on President Abdelaziz Bouteflika to step down. Wearing Algerian flags on their backs and chanting "Bouteflika,...

(Zaman Al Wasl)- A group of Syrian women activists established a Women's Social Club in the Syrian refugee camps in the Lebanese border town of Arsal, seeking is to handle and solve the women’s problems and obstacles in the camps. The club includes 15 Syrian activists, 2 Syrian...

France said Friday it had brought back five young children from camps in northern Syria, but repeated its position that adult citizens who had joined Daesh (ISIS) abroad should stay where they were and face justice. The children were either orphans or unaccompanied in the camps, the...

Iraq has begun court proceedings against 14 suspected French Daesh (ISIS) members captured by U.S.-backed forces and transferred to Iraq from Syria last month, two legal sources said. The men appeared before an investigative judge of Baghdad's anti-terrorism court on March 6 in a...

The United States, together with the European Union and Canada, Friday slapped new sanctions on more than a dozen Russian officials and businesses in response to the country's "continued aggression in Ukraine." "Today's action targets individuals and entities playing a role in Russia's...

Israel said Friday its aircraft had struck dozens of Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip overnight in response to rockets from the Palestinian enclave, including rare fire toward its economic capital Tel Aviv. The escalation followed weeks of growing tensions and came at an especially sensitive...

Daesh (ISIS) is down to its last few hundred fighters and less than a square kilometer of land in a battle for its last Syrian stronghold, although it may have 15,000-20,000 adherents in Syria and Iraq, U.S. envoy James Jeffrey said on Friday. "We are just about finished with the campaign...

Authorities in Nigeria say 20 people are confirmed dead in the school building that collapsed on Wednesday, and most of them are children. Lagos State Health Commissioner Jide Idris tells The Associated Press that 43 other people were rescued alive. Officials have said the...

At least one gunman killed 49 people and wounded more than 20 during Friday prayers at two New Zealand mosques in the country's worst ever mass shooting which Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern condemned as terrorism. A gunman broadcast live footage on Facebook of the attack on one mosque in...

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres announced Thursday the appointment of Khawla Matar of Bahrain as the Deputy Special Envoy for Syria. Ms. Matar succeeds Ramzy Ezzeldin Ramzy of Egypt, to whom the Secretary‑General reiterates his gratitude for his efforts in the search...

(Zaman Al Wasl)- Aida al-Haj Yousif, a former detainee by the Syrian regime, tells new torture memo about women prisoners. After a 15-day shift in the hospital, Jihan, 28, was heading her flat in the Rukneddine district. But the exhausted woman was obliged to wait for long time at an...

A Bahraini court sentenced 167 people arrested in 2017 at a sit-in outside the home of Bahrain’s leading Shi’ite Muslim cleric to between six months and 10 years in prison at a trial in late February, court documents and lawyers said. Protesters had gathered at the home of Ayatollah Sheikh...

A Russian-made Soyuz rocket lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Thursday, carrying three astronauts into space, two of whom survived a mid-air rocket failure in October. The Soyuz MS-12 took off at 1914 GMT, as planned, and is due to bring Russian cosmonaut Alexei...

Israel grabbed over 10,000 hectares (24,700 acres) of Palestinian land in the past 50 years, citing security needs, but nearly half has gone to its West Bank settlements, an Israeli NGO said Thursday. A report by Kerem Navot, which monitors Israeli settlement and government land...

Trudging up an ochre cliff-face in eastern Syria, veiled women, wounded men and dusty children make a final journey out of the Islamic State group's crumbling redoubt. Under the drizzle of a dark brewing sky, their exodus Thursday from the last dregs of the extremist group's "caliphate" in...

The United Nations won almost $7 bln in aid pledges for Syria on Thursday, overcoming fatigue among donors after eight years of civil war and sidestepping divisions over how to deal with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The emergency aid pledges came at a conference at which Western donors...

More European allies in NATO increased defense spending in 2018, with sharp rises in the Baltics, Poland and the Netherlands, but only six governments met a target sought by the United States - while Germany lagged and Canadian outlays fell. European allies have tried to deflect threats...

Islamic State militants accompanied by women and children surrendered to the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in their hundreds on Thursday as the jihadists lost ground to a U.S.-backed assault on their last shred of territory, the SDF said. Many of the men could be seen limping as they...

All U.S. diplomats remaining in Venezuela left the country on Thursday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said, amid a political crisis over the legitimacy of President Nicolas Maduro’s 2018 re-election. “U.S. diplomats will now continue that mission from other locations where they will...