Tens of thousands bid farewell to Iran’s Raisi ahead of burial
Men and women thronged the main boulevard of Mashhad, Iran's second city in the northeast where Raisi was born, bidding...Geostrategy
Israel, Hamas reject bid before ICC to arrest leaders for war crimes
Israel and Hamas, engaged in heavy fighting in the Gaza Strip, both angrily rejected on Monday moves to arrest their...Geostrategy
Saudi Arabia to enhance air connectivity to over 250 destinations by 2030
RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL - A delegation led by President of the General Authority of Civil Aviation (GACA) Abdulaziz bin...The Kingdom plans on carrying 330 million passengers annually and raising freight capacity to 4.5 million tons by 2030.
Saudi Arabia and the Dominican Republic also signed agreements on air transport services between the two countries.
Jailed Iranian activist Narges Mohammadi wins Nobel Peace Prize
Mohammadi's award comes after a wave of protests that swept Iran after the death in custody a year ago of...She is the vice-president of the Defenders of Human Rights Centre founded by Iranian human rights lawyer Shirin Ebadi, herself a Nobel Peace Prize laureate in 2003.
Mohammadi was honored "for her fight against the oppression of women in Iran and her fight to promote human rights and freedom for all".
EU foreign policy chief to visit China next week
China while also maintaining ties with the world's second-largest economy. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has defined the...Borrell first pushed back the trip in April after testing positive for coronavirus and was then expected to go in July before China abruptly called off the visit
He will meet Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi "to discuss bilateral relations as well as foreign policy and security issues", the EU official added
Israeli forces kill 3 Palestinian fighters in West Bank
The Palestinian health ministry named the two men killed as Abdul Rahman Atta, 23, and Huthaifa Faris, 27, saying they...Israel's military said the deadly gunfight in the Tulkarem area had erupted after soldiers identified a "suspicious vehicle" near Shufa village
Palestinian Red Crescent Society said Israeli forces "prevented our crews from treating them and took them away" from the scene at a Shufa checkpoint
US shoots down Turkish drone over Syria
US troops observed drones carrying out strikes early Thursday, some of them inside a "restricted operating zone" (ROZ) near Hasakeh,...The shootdown came as Turkey targeted Kurdish forces in Syria following a suicide bombing in Ankara that was claimed by the Kurdistan Workers' Party
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin spoke with his Turkish counterpart Yasar Guler on Thursday, urging "de-escalation in northern Syria
UN’s Syria envoy deplores ‘horrific’ bloodshed
"I am gravely concerned by the escalating violence in Syria today," Geir Pedersen, the UN Special Envoy for Syria, said...An attack on a Syrian military academy in Homs killed more than 100 people, a war monitor said, with state media blaming "terrorist organization"
Separately, Turkish air raids in the Kurdish-held northeast killed at least nine people after Ankara had threatened raids in retaliation for a bomb attack
UAE President receives Speaker of Iranian Parliament
Abu Dhabi, UAE – UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan on Thursday received Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, Speaker of...During the meeting at Qasr Al Shati in Abu Dhabi, the UAE president conveyed his greetings to Iranian president Dr Ebrahim Raisi
The two sides discussed relations between the two countries and ways to enhance ties, especially at the parliamentary level
West responsible for Ukraine war, Russia wants ‘New World’ says Putin
Moscow, Russia - President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that Russia's mission was to create a "new world" and blamed Western hegemony...Putin has portrayed Russia's full-scale military intervention in Ukraine -- launched in February 2022 -- as part of a long-standing confrontation with the West
Putin said the conflict in Ukraine was "not a territorial" one and that Moscow has "no interests from the point of view of conquering some territories"
Middle East economic growth to fall in 2023, says World Bank
WASHINGTON, US - The growth of the economies in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) is expected to fall...The region’s gross domestic product is expected to fall to 1.9 percent in 2023 from 6 percent in 2022, due to oil production cuts.
The decline in growth this year is expected to be more pronounced in the oil exporting countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council.
X removes headlines from news articles shared by users
The changes brought a good deal of criticism, journalist Tom Warren of The Verge website posting on X: "It's the...Elon Musk said the change was for "aesthetic" reasons -- news and other links now appear only as pictures with no accompanying text
When the changes to links were first mooted in August, Musk posted: "This is coming from me directly. Will greatly improve the esthetics."