Sudan will permit non-Muslims to consume alcohol and the country will strengthen women's rights, including banning female genital mutilation (FGM), its justice minister said late on Saturday. This marks a reversal of almost four decades of hardline Islamist policies. About 3% of Sudan's...

Ferrari's nightmare start to the 2020 Formula One season continued on Sunday when Charles Leclerc collided with Sebastian Vettel on the opening lap of the Styrian Grand Prix. The Monegasque attempted to push past his team-mate on the inside of Turn Three, but rode the kerbs and instead...

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday pledged immediate financial aid to Israelis whose livelihoods have been devastated by the coronavirus, as his government faces mounting anger over its pandemic response. Thousands of protesters turned out in Tel Aviv on Saturday to voice...

Iran's supreme leader Sunday called the resurgence of the novel coronavirus in the country "truly tragic" and urged all citizens to help stem what has been the region's deadliest outbreak. "Let everyone play their part in the best way to break the chain of transmission in the short term and...

Lebanon's top Christian cleric stepped up criticism of Hezbollah and its allies without naming them on Sunday, saying Lebanese rejected being isolated from their allies and driven into decline. For the second sermon in a row, Maronite Patriarch Bechara Boutros Al-Rai stressed the importance...

Recoveries from the novel coronavirus in Russia crossed half a million on Sunday. Over the last 24 hours, 3,615 people were discharged from hospitals, bringing the number of cured patients to 501,061, the country’s emergency task force said in a daily report. Over the same period, 6,615...

Iran said that the misalignment of an air defence unit's radar system was the key "human error" that led to the accidental downing of a Ukrainian passenger plane in January. "A failure occurred due to a human error in following the procedure" for aligning the radar, causing a "107-degree...

US President Donald Trump wore a face mask in public for the first time Saturday, finally yielding to intense pressure to set a public health example as the coronavirus rampages across America. Trump had on a dark mask with the presidential seal as he walked through the corridors of Walter...

Libya’s UN-recognized government will agree to a cease-fire only if warlord Khalifa Haftar withdraws his forces from country’s central and western regions, the Turkish foreign minister said. Speaking to British daily the Financial Times (FT), Mevlut Cavusoglu said the Government of National...

 Hundreds of thousands of Hong Kongers turned up over the weekend to vote in an unofficial two-day primary election held by the city’s pro-democracy camp as it gears up to field candidates for an upcoming legislative poll. The exercise is being held two weeks after Beijing imposed a...

Forces loyal to a Libyan commander said they will only allow the reopening of oil fields and terminals once a mechanism has been set up to fairly distribute revenue across the country, which is split between rival, warring factions. Powerful tribes in eastern Libya loyal to Khalifa Haftar...

A U.N. Security Council resolution that leaves only one of two border crossings open for aid deliveries from Turkey into rebel-held northwestern Syria will cost lives and intensify the suffering of 1.3 million people living there, aid agencies said. Western states had pressed for aid access...

Voters in Poland headed to the polls on Sunday for the second round of presidential election after no candidate achieved the 50% needed for an all-out victory in the first round. Poland's President Andrzej Duda topped the first round of voting with 43.5% while his rival Rafal Trzaskowski,...

 Russia scored a victory for its ally Syria Saturday by forcing the Security Council to limit humanitarian aid deliveries to the country’s mainly rebel-held northwest to just one crossing point from Turkey, a move that Western nations say will cut a lifeline for 1.3 million people....

An abandoned oil tanker lying off Yemen's coast with 1.1 million barrels of crude on board is deteriorating badly and could rupture at any time, with disastrous results for Red Sea marine life, UN and other experts warn. The 45-year-old FSO Safer is anchored off the port of Hodeida under...

The water crisis in the eastern suburbs of Damascus is a major catastrophe for residents in light of the spread of the Coronavirus, that requires cleaning and sterilizing homes and clothes and washing hands constantly, which the shortage hinders. The Syrian regime is not doing anything...

Russia's air defence systems have intercepted an unknown drone attack on Hmeimim air base in the coastal province of Latakia, activists and Russian media said Saturday. The Russian army has downed more than 60 drones deployed by rebels in northern Idlib province and Latakia mountains...

At least two doctors in Syria's opposition-held northwest have been infected with the coronavirus, according to a monitoring group Saturday, raising the total number of cases in the overcrowded rebel enclave to three. The Syrian opposition and militant groups control the Idlib area, which...

The UN Security Council is due to vote again Saturday on an extension of cross-border humanitarian aid to Syria after Russia and China vetoed a previous measure to the chagrin of Western member states. Authorization for the transport of aid to war-torn Syria, a system in place since 2014,...

Russia's forest service said there were nearly 300 wildfires blazing across the vast country's northern wilderness on Saturday, as it attempted to contain them with methods including explosives and cloud seeding. Freakishly warm weather across large swathes of Siberia since January,...