Tens of thousands of Belarusians chanting “Happy Birthday, you rat” and flying red-and-white opposition flags gathered near President Alexander Lukashenko’s residence on Sunday as protesters kept up pressure on the veteran leader to resign. Lukashenko, who turned 66 on Sunday, is struggling...

Turkey on Sunday celebrated the 98th anniversary of Victory Day, which commemorates the resounding defeat of the Greek forces at the hands of the Turks in the Battle of Dumlupinar in 1922. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, senior government and high-ranking military officials, and opposition...

Lewis Hamilton stretched his lead in the drivers' world championship and closed to within two wins of Michael Schumacher's Formula One record of 91 Sunday with a majestic, if ultimately tense, Belgian Grand Prix victory. The series leader and six-time champion registered his 89th career win...

France's Benoit Paire has tested positive for COVID-19 and will have to pull out of the U.S. Open starting Monday, French sports daily L'Equipe reported Sunday. Paire, seeded 17th at the Grand Slam event, was scheduled to play Poland's Kamil Majchrzak in the first round at Flushing Meadows...

An Israeli airliner flying to the United Arab Emirates Monday with aides to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump will fly over Saudi Arabia, according to a source familiar with the itinerary. Israel's flag carrier El Al will carry the delegations to Abu Dhabi for...

 Sudan's main rebel alliance has agreed a peace deal with the government aimed at ending 17 years of conflict, official news agency SUNA said Sunday. The Sudan Revolutionary Front (SRF), an alliance of rebel groups from the western region of Darfur and the southern states of South...

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad issued a decree Sunday appointing a new cabinet without changing the heads of so-called "sovereign" portfolios, days after confirming Hussein Arnous as the country's premier. The decree, published on the presidency's social media channels, keeps the heads of...

For Wael, a Syrian man from Raqqa, the situation in his hometown feels like deja vu.  When he fled the city for Homs in 2014, it was to escape the Islamic State (IS) group, which had taken over Raqqa as its de facto Syrian capital and ruled it with an iron fist under a self-declared...

Egyptian public prosecutors have ordered the detention of a second man suspected of being involved in an alleged gang rape at a luxury hotel in Cairo in 2014 pending investigations, they said in a statement on Sunday. Police arrested the man on Aug 28, days after a first suspect was...

State oil company Saudi Aramco has discovered two new oil and gas fields in the northern regions, the kingdom’s energy minister said on Sunday, state news agency SPA reported. The energy minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman Al-Saud said the new Abraq al-Toloul oil field, which lies to the...

Israel hopes to hold a signing ceremony in Washington for its normalisation deal with the United Arab Emirates by mid-September, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet said on Sunday. The date for such an event could be decided by senior aides to Netanyahu and to U.S....

Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said on Sunday the powerful Shi’ite movement was open to discussing a new political order in Lebanon if all factions agree to it, as foreign donors press for deep reforms to tackle the country’s multiple crises. The presidency has called for...

Facebook made a mistake in not removing a militia group's page earlier this week that called for armed civilians to enter Kenosha, Wisconsin, amid violent protests after police shot Jacob Blake, CEO Mark Zuckerberg says. The page for the "Kenosha Guard" violated Facebook's policies and had...

The death toll from this month's Beirut port blast has risen to 190 with more than 6,500 injured and three people missing, Lebanon's caretaker government said in a report dated Sunday. Lebanese authorities are probing what caused highly explosive material stored unsafely for years to...

German Gracia Schuette and Syrian Aeham Ahmad both had their lives changed forever by Angela Merkel's decision in 2015 to leave Germany's doors open to hundreds of thousands of refugees. In August of that year, Schuette joined thousands of volunteers serving ladles of hot soup to exhausted...

What if you threw a film festival and nobody came? That, in essence, is the challenge facing organisers of this year's Venice Film Festival, the glamorous annual competition where stars, critics, photographers and industry executives mingle on the bustling Lido, overlooking sandy beaches...

Global coronavirus infections soared past 25 million on Sunday, as countries around the world further tightened restrictions to try to stop the rampaging pandemic. A million additional cases have been detected globally roughly every four days since mid-July, according to an AFP tally, with...

Thousands of tearful Shiite pilgrims wearing gloves and face masks flooded Iraq's holy city of Karbala Sunday to mark Ashura, one of the largest Muslim gatherings since the Covid-19 pandemic started. Ashura, on the 10th day of the mourning month of Muharram, commemorates the killing of the...

Health authorities in Australia and New Zealand confirmed additional infections and fatalities from the coronavirus Sunday. Cases in Australia rose to 25,570 with 112 infections reported in the past 24 hours, according to health officials. At least 11 patients lost their lives, bringing...

A total of 65 new COVID-19 cases were recorded in government-controlled areas in Syria on Saturday, the health ministry said in a statement. With the new cases, the tally of coronavirus infections has risen to 2,628 in Syria's government-controlled areas since March, including 599...