(Zaman Al Wasl)- About 50 prisoners from southern Daraa province were released due to a special amnesty by Bashar al-Assad, a local rights group said Friday. Assad's move came to ease tensions amid a hike in skirmishes over past months in the cradle of the Syrian revolution....

Nike lost $790 million in the fourth quarter, as soaring digital sales couldn't make up for the loss of revenue from shuttered stores in most of the world. The world's largest sports apparel maker said Thursday that its revenue fell 38% to $6.31 billion in the three-month period ending May...

A presidential campaign that has largely been frozen for several months because of the coronavirus took on a degree of normalcy Thursday when President Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden swung through critical battleground states presenting starkly different visions for a...

Oil prices rose on Friday, extending gains on optimism about a recovery in fuel demand worldwide, despite a surge in coronavirus infections in some U.S. states and signs of a revival in U.S. crude production. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude CLc1 futures gained 25 cents, or 0.7%, to...

A huge explosion occurred east of Iran’s capital Tehran late Thursday that lit up the night sky, according to local media. Footage shared on social media showed a bright orange flash followed by a large plume of smoke. “Some local sources have reported a big orange flash east of Tehran....

The unexplained death of a fugitive Iranian judge, who plunged from a top floor of his hotel in Bucharest last week, has infuriated activists who say a rare chance has been missed to bring a senior Iranian official to justice over alleged rights violations. Gholamreza Mansouri's body was...

Russia has quit a United Nations arrangement that aimed to protect hospitals and humanitarian aid deliveries in Syria from being hit by the warring parties, according to a UN note to aid groups seen Thursday. The Russian move comes after an internal UN inquiry in April found it was "highly...

Iraq registered nearly 2,500 new coronavirus cases and over 100 deaths on Thursday, setting new records in a country whose health sector had been bracing itself for such a spike. Hospitals across the country have been overwhelmed over the last week by a jump in cases and deaths, following...

Pop sensation and global icon Michael Jackson is being remembered on Thursday, 11 years after his death, for his significant contribution to culture in the 20th century. Also known for being the greatest entertainer in the history of music, Jackson was an American singer, dancer,...

The United States on Thursday blacklisted four companies in Iran’s metals sector, as well as one German and three Emirati subsidiaries of Iran’s largest steelmaker that Washington said generate millions of dollars for Tehran’s metals industry. The Treasury Department said in a statement...

Libya’s internationally recognised government demands that Khalifa Haftar’s forces withdraw from the coastal city of Sirte and Jufra region as pre-conditions for ceasefire talks, Turkey said on Thursday. With Turkish military support, the Government of National Accord (GNA) has reversed a...

Germany and France promised Thursday to pay hundreds of millions of euros to the World Health Organization, which faces a US withdrawal over its handling of the coronavirus pandemic. The two European nations said their increased support was not aimed at filling funding holes left by the US...

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday that Israel and the United Arab Emirates would cooperate in the fight against the coronavirus - a possible boost to Israeli efforts to normalise relations with Gulf Arab countries. Netanyahu said a formal announcement on working together with...

A Turkish air strike on Iraqi Kurdistan killed one person and wounded six others Thursday, a local official said, as Ankara pushed an assault on the north of the country. On June 17, Turkey launched a cross-border ground and air operation, dubbed "Claw-Tiger," against Kurdish rebels hiding...

A total of 14,388 people tortured to death in Syrian civil war since March 2011 were mostly by the Bashar al-Assad regime, according to the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR). Ahead of the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, SNHR, which documents violations of civil...

Western and Arab countries pledged $1.5 billion at a conference hosted by Germany to help Sudan ease an economic crisis hampering its transition towards democracy after the fall of autocratic leader Omar al-Bashir. The European Union pledged 312 million euros ($350.13 million), the United...

Syria’s Bashar Assad has been counted out before. There were times during his country’s civil war, which has killed hundreds of thousands of people and pushed more than 12 million more from their homes, when it seemed the only way forward for all the major parties involved would be for Russia...

President Michel Aoun warned on Thursday of an “atmosphere of civil war” during recent unrest in Lebanon and what he described as attempts to stir up sectarian tensions as a financial crisis sweeps the country. Aoun, a Maronite Christian, was speaking at a meeting that he said was called to...

Another 1.48 million Americans filed new claims for unemployment benefits last week, the Labor Department said Thursday, a worse-than-expected figure that showed the continuing potency of the coronavirus pandemic. The new claims were a decrease of only 60,000 from the week prior and brought...

 Gaza rulers Hamas warned Thursday that Israel's planned annexation of parts of the occupied West Bank would amount to a "declaration of war" against Palestinians. "The resistance considers the decision to annex the West Bank and the Jordan Valley to be a declaration of war on our...