Lebanon plans to lower internet prices and boost speed after cutting landline and mobile call prices by up to half this month to boost consumption and ease pressure on consumers, its telecoms minister said on Monday. A country of about 4 million people, Lebanon has some of the...
About 65 percent of Syria's chemical weapons have been removed so far, Syria-based joint mission of the UN and the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) said Monday. The statement said that the 13th consignment of chemical arms was delivered to Syria's Latakia...
The western-backed Syrian opposition called on the United States to give "an appropriate response" to what it said was genocide committed by forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad in Aleppo, the country's second city. In a letter to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry...
Israel is holding secret talks with some Arab states that do not recognize it, looking to establish diplomatic ties based on a common fear of Iran , Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said on Monday. Amongst the countries he was in contact with were Saudi Arabia...
Turkey urged executives from Twitter to open an office and start paying Turkish tax on Monday in the first direct talks since a two-week ban imposed on the site as the government battled a corruption scandal. Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's government blocked Twitter and...
Iran and Russia will find it hard to agree any oil or gas trade deal because they are rivals in both markets , Iran's deputy oil minister for international trade said on Monday. Iran and Russia have been discussing various ways of increasing bilateral trade,...
The United States and three European allies want a global body controlling nuclear exports to consider whether to establish closer ties with non-members including Israel , despite its assumed atomic arsenal, a confidential document showed. The issue is sensitive as Israel...
Libyan prosecutors opened the trial of deposed leader Muammar Gaddafi's sons and more than two dozen of his ex-officials on Monday in a major test for the North African state's transition to a democracy. Gaddafi's sons Saadi Gaddafi and Saif al-Islam did not appear in the...
Ukraine's president on Monday threatened military action after pro-Russian separatists occupying government buildings in the east ignored an ultimatum to leave and another group of rebels attacked a police headquarters in the troubled region. Acting president Oleksander...
France ’s steps at the UN Security Council toward an ICC referral for Syria give momentum to international efforts to ensure justice there, Human Rights Watch said today. Security Council members and other countries alike should express support for a referral of the situation in...
Syrian regime forces have reclaimed the ancient Christian hamlet of Maaloula, near Damascus, and seized a rebel-held town near the border with Lebanon, agencies reported on Monday. A security official told Agence France-Presse that the Syrian army retook Maaloula four months...
Syrian opposition activists have posted photographs and video that they say shows an improvised chlorine bomb to back up claims that President Bashar al-Assad's forces used chemical weapons in two attacks last week. Rebels and the government have blamed each other for the...
Syrian warplanes on Sunday launched an offensive against a string of opposition bastions on the edges of the capital, including the besieged Eastern Ghouta area, a monitoring group said. "Warplanes carried out two air strikes against areas of Douma," northeast of Damascus, killing 13...
Patrick Seale, a British journalist and controversial Middle East historian, died on Friday in London at the age of 83, ten months after being diagnosed with brain cancer. Born in Belfast, Seale spent the first decade and a half of his life in Syria, where his father was a...
Moroccan police announced Saturday that it has recently dismantled a terrorist cell that recruits Moroccan combatants for Syria, local media reported. The cell members are sent to Syria in coordination with terrorist organisations affiliated with Al Qaeda, such as "Cham al- Islam...
A total of 189,000 children, aged below five, have been vaccinated against polio for the past week in the the central province of Homs, as part of a national government campaign in the war-torn country, state media reported. The national vaccination campaign, the fifth one since last...
A sale of several hundred German battle tanks to Saudi Arabia is likely to be cancelled because of opposition from Social Democrat Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel, a German newspaper reported on Sunday. German media have reported interest by Saudi Arabia in buying up to 800...
Iran has called off a deployment of warships to the Atlantic Ocean, the semi-official Fars news agency said on Sunday, shelving plans for its vessels to approach U.S. maritime borders in response to the U.S. navy's presence in the Gulf. A senior Iranian naval commander...
Local sources reported that thousands of people from East Markada in “Alhjish” village and neighborhoods, were forced to leave their houses and run away to the nearby villages, to live in a camp they have established in hurry. Sources explained that around 5 thousand people...
For three years, residents of Syria's Mediterranean provinces have watched from their coastal sanctuary as civil war raging further inland tore the country apart, killing tens of thousands of people and devastating historic cities. But a three-week-old offensive by rebel...
