Manuel Valls, a former French Socialist prime minister, said on Tuesday that he wished to support President-elect Emmanuel Macron's political movement in the June elections in the lower house of parliament. "I will be a candidate in the presidential majority and I wish to join up to...

Iranian state TV says that search crews have found seven more bodies at the site of a coal mine explosion last week, bringing the total death toll in the incident to 42. Tuesday's report quotes Reza Morovati, an official in the Golestan government, as saying that the bodies have been taken...

Key members of the US-led coalition fighting ISIS in Iraq and Syria meet in Copenhagen on Tuesday to assess the campaign's next steps as the extremists' "caliphate" collapses. Though officials warn that military action will continue for some time, they are generally upbeat about the progress...

( Chicago Tribune )- For many Americans, horrific images of children bloodied and battered by Syria's civil war have driven outrage and financial support. But for a number of Chicago-based physicians, the conflict in Syria and the oath they took to save lives have converged in their homeland....

Federal appeals court judges on Monday peppered a U.S. Justice Department lawyer with tough questions about President Donald Trump's temporary ban on travelers from six Muslim-majority nations, with several voicing skepticism that protecting national security was the aim of the policy, not...

(Eqtsad)- Shiite influence has increased in Dommar, western district of Damascus, where many Shiite families have been brought to the neighbourhood, added to buying properties, houses, shops and lands of the neighbourhood to Shiite at high prices.  Ows al-Omawi, manger of...

Zaman al-Wasl is publishing the names of the Syrian military pilots who conducted and still carrying out daily barrel bombs attacks on opposition-held areas. The deadly weapon whose use was Russia’s idea cost the regime only a small price. It is considered one of the cheapest types of bombs....

A new round of United Nations-backed peace talks for war-ravaged Syria is set to begin in Geneva next week, the office of the UN mediator said Monday. "Special Envoy Staffan de Mistura will reconvene the intra-Syrian talks under the auspices of the United Nations in Geneva on 16 May 2017,"...

Russia on Monday faced resistance from Western powers to a bid to win UN Security Council backing for an agreement it signed with Iran and Turkey on establishing safe zones in Syria. The deal signed in the Kazakh capital Astana last week calls for the creation of four "de-escalation zones"...

( The Guardian )- Tunisia is often hailed as a progressive Arab country, where, according to US human rights watchdog Freedom House, “women enjoy more social freedoms and legal rights than in most other countries in the region”. A series of gender reforms under then president Habib Bourguiba...

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday said debates over the possibility of moving the US embassy In Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem are "extremely wrong" and should be dropped. US President Donald Trump had promised during his campaign to move the American embassy to Jerusalem,...

Syria's foreign minister said on Monday that his government would abide by the terms of a Russian plan for "de-escalation" zones so long as rebels also observed it. Walid al-Moualem told a televised news conference that rebels involved in the process must help clear areas they control of...

For residents of besieged Douma, the daily struggle to survive involves not just avoiding the violence that has ravaged the Syrian town, but laboring to obtain scarce basic commodities. Facing a shortage of fuel to run generators and machinery due to the siege, former construction worker Abu...

Malaysia's most-wanted member of ISIS has been killed in Syria, police chief Khalid Abu Bakar said on Monday, citing intelligence information. Muhammad Wanndy Mohamed Jedi, 26, who was on a U.S. list of global militants, was the alleged mastermind behind a grenade attack on a Kuala Lumpur...

An Obama administration official who warned the Trump White House about contacts between one of its key advisers and Russia is set to speak publicly Monday for the first time about the concerns she raised. Former acting Attorney General Sally Yates is testifying before a Senate Judiciary...

 Eleven migrants have died and nearly 200 are missing after two boats sank off the coast of Libya, UN agencies said Monday citing survivors, in the latest such tragedy. The first involved an inflatable craft which left Libya early Friday with 132 people on board, only to start deflating...

Russia said Monday it had tabled a draft resolution at the United Nations Security Council to back up a deal on establishing safe zones in Syria. "We confirm that a draft resolution has been introduced," Russian news agencies cited the country's U.N. mission spokesman Fyodor Strzhizhovsky as...

Syria's foreign minister on Monday dismissed the idea of foreign forces patrolling four safe zones that are to be established under a deal struck by Russia, Iran and Turkey, suggesting Damascus would only settle for Russian "military police" who are already on the ground in the so-called...

U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said on Monday the United States would closely examine proposed de-escalation zones aimed at easing Syria's civil war but warned "the devil's in the details" and that much needed to be worked out. The deal to create "de-escalation" zones in the major areas...

 A group of Kurdish and Arab militias supported by the United States captured a district of the town of Tabqa from ISIS on Monday, they said in a statement, a step towards the capture of Syria's largest dam. The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) has been fighting ISIS in Tabqa for weeks,...