Egypt's health minister on Monday praised the Chinese coronavirus vaccine Sinopharm, after the Arab country received a 300,000-dose shipment of the shot as a donation from China. "Scientifically, it is considered one of the strongest vaccines," Hala Zayed said. Egypt is among dozens...

Talks on the formation of a new Cabinet in Lebanon collapsed Monday, heralding more economic and financial collapse for the small Arab country. Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri made the announcement following a short meeting with President Michel Aoun — a last-ditch effort at...

Saudi Arabia announced a plan Monday to offer Yemen's Houthi rebels a cease-fire in the country's yearslong war and allow a major airport to reopen in its capital, the kingdom's latest attempt to halt fighting that has sparked the world's worst humanitarian crisis in the Arab world's poorest...

The Turkish currency plummeted against the U.S. dollar on Monday after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan fired his third central bank head in less than two years, raising concerns about a possible return to the unconventional monetary policy favored by the Turkish president as the country...

Hamza Nasri, a young Tunisian activist, hit the streets as part of anti-government protests in recent months. Now he says he is under police watch and afraid for his friends. "I've moved house three times in recent months. I've stopped going to see certain friends so I don't put them in...

Israelis vote Tuesday in their fourth parliamentary election in just two years. Once again, the race boils down to a referendum on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu, who has served as prime minister for the past 12 years, hopes voters will reward him for leading the country’s...

AstraZeneca says advanced trial data from a U.S. study on its COVID vaccine shows it is 79% effective. The U.S. study comprised 30,000 volunteers, 20,000 of whom were given the vaccine while the rest got dummy shots. The results were announed Monday. The early findings from...

Tokyo prosecutors on Monday indicted two Americans accused of helping former Nissan boss Carlos Ghosn jump bail and make his audacious escape from Japan in 2019. In a statement, prosecutors said Michael Taylor and his son Peter were being indicted on a charge of enabling the escape...

The Syrian regime will impose new procedures to halt the free fall of its pound, seeking to tighten the noose on the exchange market  amid accusations of deliberate plunging of the currency rate by dealers. Syria Stocks, a leading Facebook page delivering daily exchange rates,...

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - U.S. and European leaders denounced what they called Turkey’s baffling and concerning decision to pull out of an international accord designed to protect women from violence, and urged President Tayyip Erdogan to reconsider. Activists participate in a protest against...

French maritime authorities said they had rescued 72 migrants in the English Channel on Sunday whose vessels ran into difficulties as they tried to reach the UK. Early Sunday, the coastguard was alerted that several boats were in trouble off the coast of Calais. One was picked...

Russian jets hit rebel training camps in northwestern Syria near the Turkish border on Sunday, hours after Syrian artillery killed seven civilians and injured 14 medics in an attack on a hospital in the area, witnesses and rebel sources said. The sources said a Russian...

Egypt’s famed writer Nawal el-Saadawi, who died Sunday aged 89, spent a lifetime vexing politicians and clerics with her fight against the oppression of women and religious taboos. The author of over 55 books—as well as physician and psychiatrist—was briefly jailed by the late president...

Saudi Arabia’s state-backed oil giant Aramco announced Sunday that its profits nearly halved in 2020 to $49 billion, a big drop that came as the coronavirus pandemic roiled global energy markets. Saudi Arabian Oil Co. released its annual financial results a year after the pandemic sent...

The Palestinian Health Ministry began administering the first doses of coronavirus vaccines it received from the global COVAX initiative to health care workers and older residents in the West Bank and Gaza Strip on Sunday. The World Health Organization and its partners running the...

Syrian Oil Minister Bassam Toma'a has revealed that around 90 per cent of Syrian oil is under the control of US forces, Aram News Network reported on Friday. "The Americans and their followers are acting like pirates as they are targeting the Syrian oil wealth and oil supplies," the...

At least seven civilians were killed after more than six rockets launched by Syrian regime forces hit a hospital in Syria’s Aleppo on Sunday, a war monitor said. The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the hospital is located in the town of Atarib, reports dpa news...

Occupancy in intensive care units in quarantine centers has reached maximum capacity in Yemen because of a sharp increase in the number of coronavirus cases in recent days, Yemen’s health minister said on Friday.  Authorities are dealing with a shortage of intensive care equipment...

The Saudi-led coalition in Yemen said Saturday that it had intercepted a drone fired by Houthi rebels towards Saudi Arabia. “Coalition forces intercepted and destroyed an unmanned explosive-laden drone fired by the Houthi militia towards Khamis Mushait city [in southern Saudi Arabia],"...

TOKYO (Reuters) - International spectators will not be allowed to enter Japan for this summer’s Olympic Games amid public concerns over coronavirus, organisers said on Saturday, crushing many fans’ hopes and setting the stage for a drastically scaled-back event. Some 600,000 Olympic...