Roadwork is booming in Israel as construction crews take advantage of empty roads and railways in the time of coronavirus to upgrade the developed world's most congested highways. Many countries have debated whether to keep up construction amid fears of spreading the infection, but Israel,...

Egypt will keep a night-time curfew for the holy Muslim month of Ramadan to combat the coronavirus spread but allow one extra hour of movement, Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly said Thursday. The curfew will start at 9 p.m. instead of the previous 8 p.m. and run until 6 a.m., he told a...

A two-week ceasefire in Yemen announced by a Saudi-led military coalition expired Thursday without leading to a permanent truce, raising fears that the country's war will grind on and shatter its already weakened ability to combat coronavirus. The latest Yemen peace push follows U.N....

More than 4.4 million laid-off workers applied for U.S. unemployment benefits last week as job cuts escalated across an economy that remains all but shut down, the government said Thursday. Roughly 26 million people have now filed for jobless aid in the five weeks since the coronavirus...

Two former members of Syria's secret police appeared in court in Germany Thursday accused of crimes against humanity for their role in a government-run detention center where thousands of opposition protesters were tortured. The trial of Anwar R. and Eyad A., whose last names weren't...

Bitterly divided EU leaders will try Thursday to hammer out a huge coronavirus rescue package, as the WHO warned the pandemic is far from over. While there are signs the COVID-19 outbreak is slowing and some countries have started to ease restrictions affecting billions of people, the world...

Iran called Thursday for the US to be held accountable for "cruel" sanctions that have hampered its efforts to fight a coronavirus outbreak that it said claimed another 90 lives. The Islamic republic has been struggling to contain the virus that causes the COVID-19 disease since revealing...

A Gaza court has sentenced a Palestinian man to six months in jail for escaping from a coronavirus quarantine facility on the Egyptian border, the Interior Ministry said on Thursday. The 33-year-old was arrested on Saturday, a few hours after breaking out of the compound at Rafah, where...

The electric lanterns and ornate decorations of Ramadan would normally be hanging in the streets of Gaza, the West Bank and east Jerusalem by now, but not this year amid coronavirus restrictions and growing economic woes. The holy fasting month is expected to start on Friday but, as...

Iran will destroy U.S. warships if its security is threatened in the Gulf, the head of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards told state TV on Thursday, a day after U.S. President Donald Trump warned Tehran over “harassment” of U.S. vessels. “I have ordered our naval forces to destroy any...

For some $15 a day, deliverymen don masks and gloves in Iran's capital to zip across its pandemic-subdued streets to drop off groceries and food for those sheltering at home from the virus. Like the wider Mideast, from skyscraper-studded Dubai to the narrow alleyways of Cairo, Iranians in...

While the Covid-19 pandemic has killed more than 180,000 people worldwide and infected more than 2.5 million, Syria has officially reported relatively few cases. If the epidemic were to worsen there, the death toll would be all the higher as the country, still under international sanctions,...

A team of volunteers in Syria have cobbled together prototypes of a ventilator and a testing machine - homemade equipment to fight the new coronavirus if it hits the last rebel stronghold, where hospitals lie in ruins after nine years of war. The group of 12, mainly technicians and...

 Spain said Thursday 440 people died in the past 24 hours from the new coronavirus, a slight increase for the third day running, bringing the overall death toll to 22,157. The country has suffered the third-highest number of deaths in the world from the pandemic after the United States...

China announced Thursday it will give another $30 million to the World Health Organization to help in the global fight against the coronavirus pandemic, days after Washington said it would freeze funding. The US, which is the WHO's biggest contributor, accused the organisation last week of...

The Premier League is considering screening some behind-closed-doors matches on free-to-air television in Britain when the season restarts, the culture secretary has said. Sky Sports and BT hold the UK television rights for live Premier League matches in what remains of the 2019/20 season,...

Long a lifeline for families back home, migrant workers in oil-rich Gulf Arab states now find themselves trapped by the coronavirus pandemic, losing jobs, running out of money and desperate to return to their home countries as COVID-19 stalks their labor camps. Whether on the island of...

The Russian government has revealed that its new T-14 Armata main battle tank was shipped to Syria for use under “field conditions.” Armata, a brand new tank design, was apparently shipped to Russian forces in Syria but it is not clear if the tank actually saw combat. Moscow originally boasted...

Analysts warned the rise could be temporary as storage tanks fill around the world, but prices recovered ground as investors reassessed the resiliance of the world’s economy amid the global health emergency. Brent crude LCOc1 was up 99 cents, or 15%, at $21.36 a barrel by 0506 GMT after...

Turkey has accepted Palestine’s call for medical and financial assistance in the fight against the novel coronavirus, according to an official statement Thursday.  Turkey announced an aid package for Palestine during an extraordinary meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation...