Voting in Friday's election kicked off at 7 a.m. (0230GMT) and is expected to continue until midnight (1930GMT), with the possibility of two hours' extension. According to the Interior Ministry, around 59 million Iranians are eligible to vote this year, including 1.3 million first-time...

 Iranians voted Friday in a presidential election dominated by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's hard-line protege after the disqualification of his strongest competition, fueling apathy that left some polling places largely deserted despite pleas to support the Islamic Republic at...

The Syrian  Health   Ministry raised the prices of 11,819 medicinal products in response to the warnings of the owners of pharmaceutical factories in Syria, who threatened to stop production if prices were not raised.   The Aliqtisadi-Syria website said the owners of...

State-run media said the prices of milk and its derivatives have increased significantly during the past two days, following a decision by the trade ministry suspending the manufacture of semi-dairies products.   The ministry for trade and consumer protection allowed last week the...

Israeli fighter jets have launched a series of air raids on the Gaza Strip for the second time since a shaky ceasefire ended last month’s 11-day war. Palestinian sources on the ground said Israeli missiles on Thursday hit several sites belonging to armed groups northwest of Gaza City...

Battered by a double whammy of the Covid-19 pandemic and crushing sanctions after the US withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal, Iran's economy is the top concern as voters head to the polls in the June 18 presidential election. Shortly after the first Covid-19 wave struck Iran last year,...

The Syrian refugee Razan Al-Aqal has obtained a scholarship in scientific research, after she graduated with distinction from her high school in the German state of Holstein.    Al-Aqal, 19, has chosen to study virology and immunology at the Faculty of Medicine  ...

   The fate of 63 officers and agents from the Intelligence Communications Department is still unknown since they were held in January 2020 following the death of Qasem Soleimani in Baghdad's U.S. strike, a military source told Zaman al-Wasl Wednesday.   At least...

The UN on Wednesday sent 72 more truckloads of humanitarian aid through Turkey to Syria's northwestern Idlib province. The trucks crossed into Idlib through the Cilvegozu border gate in Turkey’s southern Hatay province. The humanitarian aid will be distributed among the needy in Idlib,...

A decaying oil tanker threatening to spill 1.1 million barrels of crude oil off Yemen’s coast is leaving the war-torn country at the risk of an environmental and humanitarian catastrophe. The Safer oil tanker has been moored in the Red Sea since Houthi rebels captured the coastal province of...

With the swearing-in of Israel’s new coalition government that ended the 12-year tenure of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, attention has now been drawn to the possibility of reviving the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations that have been halted since April 2014. Peace talks between...

JIUQUAN, China (AP) — China launched the first three crew members on a mission to its new space station Thursday in its first crewed mission in five years. The astronauts, already wearing their spacesuits, were seen off by the commander of China’s manned space program, other uniformed...

MOGADISHU - Since the war in Syria broke out a decade ago, refugees have fled to countries in the Middle East and Europe as well as to countries in Africa that face instability, like Somalia. But now Somali officials say Syrian refugees are enriching the host nation culturally and economically....

  Fadi Hassan is a research associate at the London School of Economics’ Centre for Economic Performance and Andrea Presbitero is an associate professor of economics at Johns Hopkins University. In this guest post they argue the economic sanctions against Syria should be reconsidered...

A field study for the Action Group for the Palestinians of Syria revealed high rates of Palestinian child labor since 2011, where poverty and the loss of breadwinners constituted the most important causes of the phenomenon of child labor.   Thousands of Palestinians have lost their...

The British foreign secretary has been urged to use his influence to keep a vital Syria border crossing open to prevent a “humanitarian disaster,” it was disclosed on Wednesday. Dominic Raab was told that if the Bab al-Hawa crossing is shut when a UN mandate expires next month more than...

Turkish intelligence forces captured this week an alleged Islamic State group member in Syria who they said was plotting a major cross-border attack. Kasim Guler, known by his nom-de-guerre Abu Usame Al-Turki, is one of Turkey's most wanted terrorists, state news agency Anadolu...

Through his art installation inside the Wilhelm Morgner Museum in the German city of Soest, Manaf Halbouni sheds light on forbidden borders, artificial barriers, and cultural and psychological borders between people and nations.     ‘Borders’  installation  (Between...

 Since the civil war, through wars with Israel, militant bombings and domestic turmoil, Lebanese have considered their military as an anchor for stability, one of the only institutions standing above the country’s divisions. But the military is now threatened by Lebanon’s...

The fourth anniversary of the start of the battle for Raqqa has just passed, during which time the city was recaptured from the Islamic State (IS). Raqqa had been IS' Syrian capital, and it took over four months for the liberators, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), to wrest back control of...