(THE CONVERSATION) Until recently, most people outside of Iran had never heard of the country’s morality police, let alone followed their wider role in the region. But on Sept. 16, 2022, the death of Jina Mahsa Amini sparked widespread protests in the streets of Iran and elsewhere that have...

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Greece’s foreign ministry has slammed what it called Turkish threats of war, after the Turkish foreign minister threatened to “take action” against Greece in the wake of a military exercise in the Aegean Sea. In a statement issued Wednesday, the foreign ministry said...

MOSCOW (AP) — A court in the Russian capital on Wednesday rejected an appeal from a former journalist who was convicted of treason and given a 22-year prison sentence following what was widely seen as a politically motivated trial. The appeals court upheld the September sentence handed to...

A Turkish source has told Al Jazeera that Ankara has set a final deadline for Russia and the United States to prevent a ground military operation in northern Syria. The official said on Tuesday that Turkey has demanded that Moscow and Washington press the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) to...

BEIRUT (AP) — Commercial brakes produced by a Dutch company to be used in ambulances in Turkey instead ended up in missiles used by Turkey in attacks in northeastern Syria, a report released Tuesday said. Between September 2021 and June 2022, field investigators with London-based Conflict...

LUSAIL, Qatar (AP) — A chant of “RONALDO! RONALDO!” swept around the biggest stadium at the World Cup, followed by loud jeers when the fans realized their idol wasn’t coming onto the field. Cristiano Ronaldo was, in fact, sitting in the Portugal dugout, looking glum and still wearing a...

AL RAYYAN, Qatar (AP) — The sheer audacity. The simple execution. And then … delirium. Achraf Hakimi converted the decisive spot kick for Morocco with a little dink of a shot known as a “Panenka” in a penalty shootout win over Spain to make his team the first Arab country ever to reach the...

DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — Syria's government will close state agencies for two days in December due to severe fuel shortages caused by a disruption in the arrival of supplies and Western sanctions, state media reported Tuesday. The decision to close the institutions on Dec. 11 and Dec. 18 comes...

SOFIA, Bulgaria (AP) — The European Commission on Tuesday urged Bulgaria to thoroughly investigate the alleged shooting by Bulgarian guards of a Syrian refugee on the country's border with Turkey. European Commission spokeswoman Anitta Hipper told reporters that Brussels expects Bulgarian...

Bulgaria rejected accusations that its border guards shot a Syrian refugee in October after a video released Monday showed a man being fired at on European country's border with Turkey. The footage of an asylum-seeker being hit with live ammunition on Oct. 3 was part of a joint investigation...

The Government of Italy has contributed €1 million to UNICEF to support the most vulnerable children with severe mental and/or physical disabilities and their families in Syria through provision of regular cash assistance coupled with one-on-one support from social workers. In Syria, 14.6...

DOHA, Qatar (AP) — The image of a young Pelé celebrating goals and lifting trophies with Brazil’s national team appeared brightly on the shirts, flags and banners of Brazilian fans gathering before the Seleçao’s World Cup match against South Korea on Monday. The 82-year-old Pelé remained in...

BRUSSELS (AP) — More than six years after the deadliest peacetime attack on Belgian soil, the trial of 10 men accused over the suicide bombings at Brussels airport and a subway station started in earnest under high security on Monday. Among the accused is Salah Abdeslam, the only survivor...

DOHA, Qatar (AP) — It all seems so straightforward — laughable, perhaps — for Kylian Mbappé when it comes to the World Cup. The France forward, who scored four goals when he led his country to the title four years ago as a 19-year-old phenom, put on yet another demonstration of how...

CAIRO (AP) — An Iranian lawmaker said Sunday that Iran's government is “paying attention to the people’s real demands”, state media reported, a day after a top official suggested that the country’s morality police whose conduct helped trigger months of protests has been shut down. The role...

 Dozens of demonstrators angry over worsening economic conditions in Syria stormed and ransacked the governor's office in the southern city of Sweida on Sunday, clashing with police, the authorities and witnesses said. Earlier, more than 200 people had gathered around the building in...

 Protests in Syria's Druze-majority Sweida province turned violent on Sunday leading to the deaths of a protester and a police officer, and wounding seven others. Anti-government demonstrations are rare in Syria where President Bashar Assad stamped out a pro-democracy uprising over a...

U.S. troops Saturday resumed joint patrols with Kurdish-led forces in northeast Syria days after they were stopped amid Turkish threats of a new ground incursion into the war-torn country. A patrol consisting of four American armored vehicles and one for the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic...

The United Nations has called for the extension of a resolution that allows the use of the Bab al-Hawa border crossing for the delivery of humanitarian aid into Syria’s northwest from Türkiye. The long-running aid operation has been in place since 2014 and the most recent six-month...

Syria is resisting Russian efforts to broker a summit with Turkey's President Tayyip Erdogan, three sources said on Friday, after more than a decade of bitter enmity since the outbreak of Syria's civil war. However two Turkish sources, including a senior official, disputed that Damascus was...