Turkey’s president on Thursday unveiled the new nameplate for Hagia Sophia Mosque, the Istanbul icon due to reopen for prayers tomorrow for the first time in 86 years. Following a meeting on military matters in the capital Ankara, Recep Tayyip Erdogan and a delegation unveiled the nameplate...

US President Donald Trump spoke with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin Thursday in a discussion the White House says focused on the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, and ongoing arms control disputes. "President Trump and President Putin discussed efforts to defeat the coronavirus pandemic...

Libya on Thursday revealed a list of suspects involved in mass graves discovered in Tarhuna city and areas south of the capital Tripoli. The list released by the country's prosecutor general's office will be distributed to corresponding institutions to arrest the suspects, a source at the...

Lebanon's central bank governor inflated the institution's assets by over $6 billion in 2018, its audited annual accounts show, underlining the extent of financial engineering used to help prop up the country's economy. The financial statements for 2018, a copy of which was seen by Reuters,...

Wandering Cairo's bustling streets, Zeinab was struggling to survive by selling tissues when the coronavirus left her even more vulnerable, along with thousands of other homeless people and street children. The only good news was that, amid the pandemic fears, physical violence against the...

The devastating economic toll the coronavirus crisis is taking around the world could spark huge waves of fresh migration once borders reopen, the head of the Red Cross warned in an interview. Jagan Chapagain, head of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies...

Faced with deep and lasting consequences from the coronavirus pandemic, Arab countries must show more mutual support through aid, for example by creating "regional solidarity funds," the UN said Thursday. "The Arab region, home to 436 million people, initially kept transmission and...

Emirates, the largest airline in the Middle East, will cover customers' coronavirus-related medical costs in a bid to "boost travel confidence", the Dubai Media Office said Thursday. "Emirates will cover its passengers for COVID-19 related medical expenses and quarantine costs when they...

The World Health Organization chief on Thursday rejected as false an allegation by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that he owed his position to a deal with China. Pompeo told a private meeting of MPs on Tuesday that the WHO had become a "political" body, alleging that its decisions were...

Israel freed Thursday a senior leader of Hamas in the West Bank after imprisoning him without trial for 16 months, his son said. Hassan Yousef, a co-founder of the Palestinian Islamist group, was arrested on April 2 last year at his home near Ramallah in the occupied territory. "He is...

Two civilians were killed in a bomb attack in the northern Ras Alayn region near the Turkish border, local security sources said Thursday. A car bomb detonated near the local assembly building in the center of Ras al-Ayn (Kobani), a city near the Turkish border, also wounding seven...

President Hassan Rouhani's recent announcement that 25 million Iranians may have been infected with the coronavirus, a figure drastically higher than the country's official tally, has left many perplexed and fearful. The shock statement came five months after Iran announced its first...

Saudi Arabia's 84-year-old ruler, King Salman bin Abdulaziz, underwent a successful operation to remove his gallbladder, state news agency SPA reported Thursday, after he was admitted to hospital this week. The king, who has ruled the world's largest oil exporter and close U.S. ally since...

The Israeli military said Thursday it was reinforcing the country's northern border with infantry troops "in accordance with the situational assessment." The announcement comes after Hezbollah threatened to retaliate for a strike earlier this week that killed one of its fighters near...

Airstrikes in western Afghanistan killed 45 people, including civilians and Taliban, local officials said Wednesday. Ali Ahmad Faqir Yar, the governor of Adraskan District in the western Afghanistan province of Herat, said at least eight civilians were among the dead. "Forty-five people had...

French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday denounced what he called Turkey's "violation" of the sovereignty of Greece and Cyprus, as tensions mount between Athens and Ankara. "I want once again to reiterate France's full solidarity with Cyprus and also with Greece in the face of Turkey's...

A feared resurgence of Daesh has not so far materialized in Iraq, paving the way for a further coalition troop drawdown, a US commander said Wednesday. Though Daesh may never be completely eradicated, the group has been significantly diminished from when it controlled swathes of Iraq and...

Iraq reopened to commercial flights on Thursday after four months of lockdown to stem the spread of the novel coronavirus, which brought the country's fragile economy to its knees. Planes were wheels up on Thursday morning from Baghdad International Airport destined for Lebanon and Turkey,...

The novel coronavirus claimed hundreds of lives in Brazil and Mexico in the past 24 hours, according to health authorities. Brazil stands as the second worst-hit country by the pandemic worldwide, as its death toll climbed to 82,771 with 1,284 new fatalities in the last 24 hours, according...

The China National Pharmaceutical Group (SinoPharm) said Thursday a coronavirus vaccine could be ready by the end of 2020, according to official media. Chinese pharmaceutical companies completed early trials and are preparing for market entry by the end of the year, ahead of schedule, the...