Beijing has struggled to maintain a strong economic recovery from the pandemic, as it fights a debt crisis in its massive property sector, chronically low consumption and elevated youth unemployment.

Tunis, Tunisia - Prominent Tunisian opposition figures including Rached Ghannouchi said Friday they would go on hunger strike in solidarity with a jailed politician whose health they say has severely deteriorated after nine days without food. Jawhar Ben Mbarek, co-founder of the National Salvation Front, Tunisia's main opposition alliance, launched...

The announcement was met with a firm rebuttal from Israel. Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said Israel "firmly rejects, with contempt" the charges, calling them "the latest PR stunt by the tyrant (Turkish President Recep Tayyip) Erdogan".

Beijing, China -- A Chinese research vessel docked in the Cook Islands Saturday as it probed the Pacific nation's deep-sea mining potential, a fledgling industry of mounting interest to both Beijing and Washington. The Da Yang Hao docked in the palm-shaded port of Avatiu on a "scientific research cruise" through...

Rooted in the idea that a small elite of premium flyers should pay more for their outsized contribution to global warming, the proposal will likely pit them against the powerful aviation industry.

The pharma giant improved its offer to $10bn.

Washington, United States - Kazakhstan said Thursday it will join the Abraham Accords between Israel and mainly Muslim nations, in a largely symbolic move aimed at boosting US President Donald Trump's push for Middle East peace. The central Asian republic has had diplomatic ties with Israel for decades, unlike the...

Dubai, United Arab Emirates - AD Ports Group of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) signed a $22 million agreement Thursday for a stake in the container terminal at Syria's port in Latakia -- as Damascus seeks investments to boost its war-ravaged economy. Abu Dhabi-based firm inked the deal with French...

The project in the Alam al-Roum area, in Egypt's Matrouh Governorate, will span "4,900 acres... extending across a coastline of 7.2 kilometres of the pristine Mediterranean shoreline", a statement from the Qatari Diar company said.

Washington, United States - In a victory speech capping his meteoric rise, New York's mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani quoted at length from the famous "Tryst with Destiny" address by independent India's first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru. As he left the stage to a cheering cross-section of the metropolis, the song on...

The 81-page report was released by the heads of last year's COP29 conference in Azerbaijan and the upcoming COP30 gathering in Belem, Brazil, as leaders prepare to meet in the Amazonian city this week.

The company posted tepid Q3 results.

They were returned in exchange for the latest hostage body handed back from Gaza on Tuesday, that of Israeli-American soldier Itay Chen. Under the terms of the US-brokered agreement in effect since October 10, Israel returns 15 bodies of Palestinians for every body it receives of an Israeli hostage who...

The global travel industry is at a turning point. Today’s travellers are re-evaluating what is means to move through the world - they no longer define luxury by scale, spectacle, or the number of destinations visited.  Instead, they seek experiences that are meaningful, restorative, and deeply personal. At Explora Journeys,...

The self-proclaimed socialist, who has been re-elected three times, forged an image that has become his trademark -- a progressive Muslim just as comfortable at a Pride march as he is at an Eid banquet.

On the Mures river in central Romania, French armoured vehicles and Romanian trucks board a motorised floating bridge, part of a large military exercise to showcase NATO's ability to rapidly increase force levels on its eastern flank facing Russia.

Scientists are in broad agreement that warming above 1.5C relative to pre-industrial times risks catastrophic consequences, and every effort must be made to stick as close as possible to this safer threshold.

Dubai, United Arab Emirates -- US software firm Palantir launched a joint venture with the Dubai government's investment arm on Tuesday, as the United Arab Emirates continues its push into AI. The joint venture, named Aither, was unveiled a day after Microsoft announced $15.2 billion in AI and cloud computing...

Cairo, Egypt -- Thousands of visitors streamed through the Grand Egyptian Museum on Tuesday as almost the entire collection of King Tutankhamun's treasures -- over 4,500 artefacts -- was displayed together for the first time since the young pharaoh's tomb was discovered in 1922. Curated and conserved over nearly two decades,...

In the post-digital world, Bahrain’s center of activity, the city of Manama, has stiff yet healthy competition from the GCC financial centers such as Dubai, Riyadh and Doha. However, one must acknowledge that when it comes to reforms and financial services Bahrain has been the pioneer in the region, the...

Qatar's energy minister on Monday warned the Gulf state would halt its supply of liquefied natural gas to Europe over Brussels's planned environmental and human rights rules.

Turkey, which played a central role in forging the now shaky three-week-old ceasefire, is pushing for Muslim nations to bring their influence to bear on the reconstruction of the embattled territory.

The deal sent US chip-maker Nvidia shares up 2.6 percent, buoyed by hopes the AI juggernaut could see access for its most advanced chips expand to more markets.

The deal is valued at $48.7 billion.

Under the seven-year agreement, OpenAI, which is partly owned by AWS's archrival Microsoft, will gain access to computing resources including hundreds of thousands of state-of-the-art Nvidia GPUs.

President Donald Trump alleged Sunday that countries including Russia and China have conducted underground nuclear tests unknown to the public, and that the United States would follow suit.

The 137,000-barrels-per-day hike will apply from December and remain at that level for the following three months, signifying a "pause" in what had been regular increases since April this year, the group said in a statement following a virtual meeting.

Syria's president will discuss issues including lifting remaining sanctions, reconstruction and counter-terrorism when he becomes the country's first leader to pay an official visit to Washington later this month, the foreign minister said Sunday.

Busan, South Korea -- Rows of coffins line a university classroom in the South Korean port city of Busan, ready for use in training the funeral directors of the future in a rapidly ageing country. Growing numbers are finding work in the business of death as South Korea undergoes massive...

Nabatieh, Lebanon -- Hundreds of people gathered in south Lebanon's Nabatiyeh on Sunday to mourn five Hezbollah members killed in recent Israeli attacks, an AFP correspondent said, as Israel warned of intensifying attacks against the Iran-backed group. On Saturday, an Israeli strike killed four people in Kfar Rumman, Nabatiyeh district,...

"By destroying buildings... we will not be set back," said Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, in a visit to the country's nuclear organization. Israel launched an unprecedented bombing campaign against Iran in June, kicking off a 12-day war that saw it target nuclear and military facilities

El Dorado Hills, United States -- Matt James has collected gold nuggets for years from the hills and riverbeds of California, but as the precious metal's price soars, he has found an unexpected El Dorado: on social media. Though the value has fluctuated, it has effectively doubled in the last...

Since April, the V8 group -- comprising Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Kazakhstan, Algeria and Oman -- has boosted production by around 2.7 million barrels per day (bpd) in total.

Paris, France - An AI-generated video claiming to show one of the football stadiums for the 2034 FIFA World Cup in Saudi Arabia made waves on social media this week -- but it has nothing to do with the kingdom's official plans. The video of glowing arena built atop a...

The UN Security Council voted Friday in favor of a resolution backing Morocco's autonomy plan for Western Sahara as the "most feasible" solution for the disputed territory, triggering celebrations in Rabat but angering Algeria.

After two years of war, the ruined cities of Gaza, a densely packed territory home to more than two million Palestinians, are littered with military debris, including unexploded, still-deadly munitions.

Dubai, UAE - Deloitte Middle East has announced the launch of its Middle East Centre of Excellence for Oracle AI Agents, a specialized innovation platform aimed at accelerating the adoption of agentic AI – AI capable of autonomous thinking and action to enhance human decision-making – throughout the region. Bringing...

New York, United States -- Meta raised $30 billion in debt on Thursday, as tech giants flush with cash turn to borrowing to finance the expensive race to lead in artificial intelligence. On a day when Facebook-parent Meta's share price plunged on the heels of disappointing quarterly earnings, demand for...

The announcement came in the wake of Russia saying it had tested a nuclear-powered and nuclear-capable torpedo, as well as a new cruise missile. But Trump sparked confusion as well as concern, with no clarity on whether he was ordering testing of US nuclear-capable systems or actual test blasts.

FII 2025 marked Saudi Arabia’s shift from spectacle to scaffolding — pivoting from oil power to systemic force in energy, AI, logistics.

San Francisco, United States - Amazon's share price skyrocketed by more than ten percent on Thursday after the online retail behemoth reported better than expected earnings, powered by surging demand for its cloud computing services. Quarterly sales rose 13 percent to $180.2 billion across the company, it said. Net income...

Cairo, Egypt - With much pomp and circumstance, Cairo is due to inaugurate on Saturday the long-awaited Grand Egyptian Museum, widely presented as the crowning jewel on authorities' efforts to overhaul the country's vital tourism industry. With a panoramic view of the Giza pyramids plateau, the GEM houses thousands of...

The company, launched in May, is bankrolled by Saudi's powerful Public Investment Fund, which has played a key role in financing the kingdom's gigaprojects - major developments aimed at boosting and diversifying its oil-reliant economy.

Paris, France -- French oil and gas giant TotalEnergies reported on Thursday a sharp increase in third-quarter net profit despite lower crude prices as its production rose. The company said net income grew around 61 percent to $3.7 billion compared to the same period last year, even as oil prices...

Not including the latest two, Hamas have so far given back the remains of 15 of the 28 deceased hostages that Hamas had agreed to return as part of the US-brokered truce deal with Israel.

This was a 33% year-on-year decrease.

Israel said it struck an arms dump in Gaza on Wednesday, hours after the deadliest night of bombing since the start of a US-brokered truce, warning it would continue to operate to take out perceived threats.

The growth was powered by cloud division buoyed by AI

The world's two top economies' trade tussle -- encompassing everything from rare earths to soybeans and port fees -- has rocked markets and gummed up supply chains for months.

Gaza's civil defense agency said more than 100 people were killed, including many children, but both US President Donald Trump and regional mediator Qatar said they expected the ceasefire to hold.