Geneva, Switzerland – The global economic outlook has worsened since the start of the year, as rising economic nationalism and tariff volatility fuel uncertainty and risk stalling long-term decision-making, according to a World Economic Forum report released today. The latest Chief Economists Outlook reveals that a strong majority (79 percent)...

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia -- Saudi Arabia's tourism sector is poised for an unprecedented summer season, with the official launch of the "Saudi Summer 2025" program, themed "Colour Your Summer." The initiative, unveiled today by Ahmed Al-Khateeb, Minister of Tourism and Chairman of the Board of the Saudi Tourism Authority (STA),...

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia - Saudi Arabia announced on Tuesday that the annual Muslim hajj pilgrimage to Mecca would begin on June 4 after astronomical observatories spotted the crescent moon, marking the start of the lunar month. The date was announced by the supreme court in a statement carried by the...

Washington, United States - The US will no longer recommend Covid-19 vaccines for children and healthy pregnant women, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced Tuesday, calling it a "common sense" decision grounded in sound science. The change follows last week's announcement by Food and Drug Administration officials that they...

Paris, France - Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi was given a hero's welcome by supporters on his return to Tehran on Monday after winning the top prize at the Cannes film festival, footage posted on social media showed. After being banned from leaving Iran for years, forced to make films underground...

Abu Dhabi, UAE -- ADNOC Group's publicly traded portfolio companies combined to deliver over $2.3 billion (AED8.4 billion) in first quarter net profit. Each of the six companies delivered strong financial results in the first quarter, alongside clear progress on strategic priorities aimed at driving profitable growth. ADNOC Distribution delivered...

Jerusalem, Undefined - Israel's ambassador to Washington is being summoned home on the instructions of a government disciplinary body to discuss comments he made in a podcast interview, the foreign ministry said Sunday. Ambassador Yechiel Leiter had made an appearance on a podcast run by the right-wing US online media...

Tehran, Iran - Long-time adversaries Iran and the United States held a fifth round of Oman-mediated nuclear talks on Friday in Rome, but with no breakthrough reported. However, both sides still described the meeting as constructive and expressed a willingness to continue the discussions. Here are some of the main...

Abu Dhabi, UAE -- Real estate transactions across five emirates in the UAE surged to over AED 239 billion ($65 billion) in the first quarter of 2025, underpinned by investor confidence, flexible regulations, and expanding project pipelines, official data showed. More than 94,719 sales, purchase, and mortgage deals were recorded...

Washington, United States -- US President Donald Trump on Friday threatened Apple and other smartphone manufacturers with a 25 percent tariff unless their devices are built in the United States. Trump initially said the tariff would apply only to Apple -- an unusual move to single out a specific company...

Paris, France - When astronomers announced last month they might have discovered the most promising hints of alien life yet on a distant planet, the rare good news raised hopes humanity could soon learn we are not alone in the universe. But several recent studies looking into the same data...

Washington, United States - President Donald Trump rekindled the US trade war on Friday, threatening to impose a 50 percent tariff on the European Union -- and drawing a strong response from European politicians. If they come into effect, the new duties on Brussels would dramatically raise Washington's current baseline...

Elias Rodriguez faces murder and other charges after allegedly gunning down two Israeli embassy staffers outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington.

Cannes, France - Director Nadav Lapid said his new film "Yes" about a musician asked to re-write the Israeli national anthem is a response to his country's "blindness" to suffering in Gaza. Lapid has previously dissected his country's ills in "Synonyms", which won the Golden Bear in Berlin in 2019,...

Beijing, China -- Tech giant Xiaomi unveiled a new advanced in-house mobile chip on Thursday, a significant milestone for the company as Chinese firms shift resources towards home-grown technology against a bleak international trade backdrop. Xiaomi, which sells goods from smartphones to vacuum cleaners and electric vehicles (EVs), is one...

Abu Dhabi, UAE -- The Ministry of Finance (MoF), in its capacity as the issuer and in collaboration with the Central Bank of the UAE (CBUAE) as the issuing and payment agent, announced the successful completion of the May 2025 auction of UAE Dirham-denominated Islamic Treasury Sukuk (T-Sukuk) amounting to...

San Francisco, United States -- As Google races to lead in artificial intelligence, it faces the challenge of making sure the technology doesn't slow its profit-pumping advertising engine. The internet giant is dabbling with ads in its new AI Mode for online search, a strategic move to fend off competition...

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio suggested Wednesday that more Arab nations could forge ties with Israel this year, as Washington presses hard for relations to normalize with Saudi Arabia.

Geneva, Switzerland - The World Health Organization's member states on Tuesday adopted a landmark Pandemic Agreement on tackling future health crises, after more than three years of negotiations sparked by the shock of Covid-19. The accord aims to prevent the disjointed responses and international disarray that surrounded the Covid-19 pandemic...

Seattle, United States - Microsoft on Monday said its business cloud servers will now host technology from xAI, days after the chatbot from the company owned by Elon Musk went off the rails by referencing "white genocide" in South Africa. Musk told an event hosted by Microsoft that his company's...

Beijing, China - Factory output in China grew at a faster rate than expected last month, official data showed Monday, weathering a brutal trade war with Washington. Industrial production in the export powerhouse grew 6.1 percent on-year in April, according to figures published by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS)....

Muscat, Oman -- The general inflation rate in the GCC countries rose by 1.7 percent at the end of December 2024 compared to the figures recorded during same month of the previous year, according to the Consumer Price data released by the Statistical Centre for the Cooperation Council for the...

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia -- A Saudi airline has resumed flights for Iranian hajj pilgrims to the kingdom for the first time in a decade, the latest sign of the warming ties between the countries. "Flynas resumed Iranian pilgrims flights from Imam Khomeini (airport) in Tehran on Saturday," a Saudi civil...

Morocco said Saturday it will reopen its embassy Damascus, closed since 2012, signalling renewed support for Syria after the overthrow of longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad.

The Israeli military said Saturday it had launched "extensive strikes" as part of a fresh offensive in Gaza, after rescuers reported 100 people killed in the besieged Palestinian territory.

Jerusalem, Undefined -- US President Donald Trump's decision to skip over Israel in his Middle East tour was just the latest sign of a shifting dynamic between the historic allies. From nuclear talks with Iran, a ceasefire deal in Yemen and the announcement of lifting sanctions on Syria, Trump has...

Washington, United States -- The World Bank on Friday said it would restart operation in Syria following a 14-year pause, after Saudi Arabia and Qatar had paid off the country's outstanding debts. The Bank's operation in Syria were halted when the civil war broke out in 2011, preventing the country...

Doha, Qatar - US President Donald Trump said Thursday he urged Apple to manufacture its products in the United States instead of India, where the US tech giant has said it would be shifting production after US tariffs on China. "I had a little problem with Tim Cook," Trump said,...

Turkey is deploying all-out diplomatic efforts to secure a Russia-Ukraine deal, to ease Syria's relations with the West and facilitate Iranian nuclear talks, its diplomatic standing burnished by Donald Trump's approval.

Ankara, Turkey - After the decision by the Kurdish militant group PKK to disband, Turkey was eyeing Wednesday a raft of legal and technical measures to ensure its full implementation and finally end a four-decade insurgency. Monday's announcement sought to draw a line under a bloody chapter that began in...

Ramallah, Palestinian Territories - Al Jazeera's Ramallah bureau chief said on Monday the news channel could resume working in the Palestinian territories after president Mahmud Abbas lifted a ban in place since January. "Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has decided to lift the ban on the Al Jazeera network and allow...

Cannes, France - More than 350 figures from the cinema world including Hollywood stars Richard Gere and Susan Sarandon condemned "genocide" in Gaza in an open letter published Monday on the eve of the Cannes Festival. "We cannot remain silent while genocide is taking place in Gaza," read the letter...

Ramallah, Palestinian Territories - An Israeli rights group denounced Monday a government decision to launch extensive land registration for parts of the occupied West Bank, saying it could help advance annexation of the Palestinian territory. "It is a tool for annexation," said Yonatan Mizrachi of the Settlement Watch project at...

Poonch, India -  A ceasefire appeared to hold on Sunday between India and Pakistan, hours after the nuclear-armed rivals accused each other of violating a truce that brought them back from the brink of all-out war. The ceasefire was agreed on Saturday after four days of missile, drone and artillery...

Geneva, Switzerland - US President Donald Trump hailed a "total reset" in US-China trade relations, ahead of a second day of talks Sunday between top officials from Washington and Beijing aimed at de-escalating trade tensions sparked by his aggressive tariff rollout. In a Truth Social post early Sunday, Trump praised...

Geneva, Switzerland - Senior US and Chinese officials were meeting in Geneva Saturday in what Chinese state media described as an "important step" towards resolving the trade war sparked by President Donald Trump's sweeping tariffs. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer were holding talks with...

Manama, Bahrain - Bahrain's King Hamad bin Issa Al Khalifa on Sunday welcomed Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, Bahraini state media said, the interim leader's latest engagement with regional leaders since taking power in December. The official Bahrain News Agency said the king hosted Sharaa at his palace, where they "discussed...

Washington, United States - US Secretary of State Marco Rubio urged India and Pakistan to restore direct communication to "avoid miscalculation" in a series of calls as the conflict neared all-out war, the State Department said early Saturday. Rubio placed telephone calls to the rivals' top diplomats and, for the...

Damascus, Syria - Syrian Energy Minister Mohammad al-Bashir said Friday Damascus and Ankara had reached a deal for Turkey to supply natural gas to the war-torn country via a pipeline in the north. "I agreed with my Turkish counterpart Alparslan Bayraktar on supplying Syria with six million cubic metres of...

Paris, France - Yemen's Iran-backed Huthi rebels have emerged bruised but defiant from a blistering US bombing campaign, cementing their role as one of the Middle East's most powerful non-state actors after a truce with Washington. US President Donald Trump said the rebels had "capitulated" after the intense, seven-week campaign...

Gaza City, Palestinian Territories - First responders in Gaza said Thursday that their operations were at a near standstill, more than two months into a full Israeli blockade that has left food and fuel in severe shortage. Israel denies a humanitarian crisis is unfolding in the Gaza Strip, where it...

Washington, United States - Joseph Nye, a versatile and influential political scientist and US policymaker who coined the term "soft power," a concept of nations gaining dominance through attractiveness now scoffed at by President Donald Trump, has died, Harvard University announced Wednesday. He was 88. Nye, who died Tuesday, first...

Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa on Wednesday met French leader Emmanuel Macron on his first visit to Europe since overthrowing longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad, despite alarm over deadly clashes that have overshadowed the new authorities' first months in power.

New Delhi, India - India and Pakistan exchanged heavy artillery along their contested frontier in Kashmir on Wednesday in a major escalation between the nuclear-armed neighbours. The latest crisis erupted after New Delhi launched missile strikes on its arch-rival, with deaths subsequently reported on both sides.New Delhi accuses Pakistan of...

New Delhi, India - Prime Minister Narendra Modi said Tuesday that water from India that once flowed across borders will be stopped, days after suspending a key water treaty with arch-rival Pakistan. New Delhi has blamed Islamabad for backing a deadly attack on tourists on the Indian side of contested...

Damascus, Syria - Syrian state television officially relaunched on Monday with a trial broadcast almost five months after the ouster of longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad and following delays blamed on sanctions and dilapidated equipment. After Syria's new authorities took power in December, state media and other television channels, radio stations...

San Francisco, United States - OpenAI CEO Sam Altman on Monday said the company behind ChatGPT would continue to be run as a nonprofit, as it abandoned a highly contested plan to turn into a for-profit organization. The issue had become a serious point of contention for the artificial intelligence...

Tehran, Iran - Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi on Monday accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of attempting to drag the United States into "disaster" in the Middle East, warning against any attempt to attack Iran. "Netanyahu is directly MEDDLING within the US Government to DRAG it into another DISASTER...

Washington, United States - President Donald Trump said Sunday he was ordering new tariffs on all films made outside the United States, claiming Hollywood was being "devastated" by a trend of US filmmakers and studios working abroad. The announcement comes as the White House is coming under mounting criticism over...

Washington, United States -- The US Federal Reserve is widely expected to extend a recent pause in rate cuts this week as it waits to see how President Donald Trump's stop-start tariff rollout affects the health of the world's largest economy. Trump has imposed steep levies on China, and lower...