Rio de Janeiro, Brazil -- BRICS leaders meeting in Rio de Janeiro from Sunday are expected to decry US President Donald Trump's "indiscriminate" trade tariffs, saying they are illegal and risk hurting the global economy. Emerging nations, which represent about half the world's population and 40 percent of global economic...

But Netanyahu, who is due to meet with President Donald Trump in Washington on Monday, said the Palestinian group's proposals for changes to a draft US-backed ceasefire deal were "unacceptable".

The world's richest person -- and Trump's biggest political donor in the 2024 election -- had a bitter falling out with the president after leading the Republican's effort to slash spending and cut federal jobs as head of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

Trump pushed Republican lawmakers to get his unpopular "One Big Beautiful Bill" through a reluctant Congress in time for him to sign it into law on the US national holiday -- and they did so with a day to spare Thursday. Ever the showman, Trump will now meld a victory...

The United Nations and major aid groups have refused to cooperate with the Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation over concerns it was designed to cater to Israeli military objectives and violates basic humanitarian principles.

Jerusalem, Undefined -- Israel's opposition leader said Friday he met with the United Arab Emirates foreign minister in Abu Dhabi and discussed efforts for a ceasefire in Gaza. The UAE normalized ties with Israel in 2020 as part of the US-brokered Abraham Accords. Abu Dhabi also has close ties with...

Iran announced Thursday that it has reopened its airspace, including over Tehran, after closing it on June 13 due to the war with Israel, according to state media

Cairo, Egypt -- Mohammed bin Ahmed Al Yamahi, President of the Arab Parliament, has strongly condemned and rejected the dangerous statements issued by Israeli officials, most recently the statements made by the Israeli Minister of Justice, in which he explicitly called for the annexation of the West Bank and the...

Tokyo, Japan -- Japan will from January attempt to extract rare earth minerals from the ocean floor in the deepest trial of its kind, the director of a government innovation programme said Thursday. Earlier this week the country pledged to work with the United States, India and Australia to ensure...

They included 38 people waiting for humanitarian aid at three separate locations in central and southern Gaza and a child killed by a drone in Jabalia in the north.

The Israeli leader had yet to comment on US President Donald Trump's claim that Israel had backed a plan for a 60-day truce in its offensive against Hamas in the war-ravaged territory.

It said it sought "to reach an agreement that guarantees ending the aggression, achieving the withdrawal (of Israel from Gaza) and urgently aiding our people in the Gaza Strip".

Once a bustling seafront spot where young people could hope for a rare respite from war, Gaza City's al-Baqa cafe lay in ruins after an Israeli strike killed 24 people including a journalist and an artist.

Seville, Spain -- Countries including France, Kenya, Barbados and Spain on Monday launched a coalition to push for taxes on wealthy air passengers to help poorer nations respond to climate change, the French presidency said. The coalition, which also brings together Somalia, Benin, Sierra Leone and Antigua and Barbuda, said...

"The action taken by parliament members... is a natural response to the unjustified, unconstructive, and destructive conduct of the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency," Pezeshkian told Macron in a phone call.

His comments lifted hope for a new ceasefire in the devastating conflict in the Palestinian territory, after US President Donald Trump said he hoped a truce could be sealed within days.

"We have serious doubts over the enemy's compliance with its commitments including the ceasefire, we are ready to respond with force" if attacked again," Iranian armed forces chief of staff Abdolrahim Mousavi was quoted as saying.

Iran also writes to the UN chief to recognize the Israeli regime and the United States as the "initiators of the act of aggression and acknowledge their subsequent responsibility, including reparations."

Civil defense spokesman Mahmud Bassal said 35 people were killed in seven Israeli drone and air strikes in various locations, and two others by Israeli fire while waiting for food aid in the Netzarim zone in central Gaza.

Dubai, UAE -- A planned trade corridor linking the landlocked Sahel to the Atlantic is at the heart of an ambitious Moroccan project to tackle regional instability and consolidate its grip on disputed Western Sahara. The "Atlantic Initiative" promises ocean access to Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger through a new...

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday that Russia and Ukraine's demands for peace were "absolutely contradictory", after two rounds of peace talks have failed to bring the sides closer to an elusive ceasefire.

Washington, United States -- Conflicts and related fatalities have more than tripled since the early 2000s, fueling extreme poverty, the World Bank said Friday. Economies in fragile and conflict-affected regions have become "the epicenter of global poverty and food insecurity, a situation increasingly shaped by the frequency and intensity of...

In a 6-3 ruling stemming from Trump's bid to end birthright citizenship, the court said nationwide injunctions issued by district court judges "likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has granted to federal courts." The top court did not immediately rule on the constitutionality of Trump's executive order seeking to...

Dubai, United Arab Emirates -- The UAE supreme court has jailed 24 people for life after upholding their convictions for "terrorist" links. "The Criminal Chamber of the Federal Supreme Court ruled (on Thursday) to partially overturn the judgment issued by the State Security Chamber at the Abu Dhabi Federal Court...

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on Thursday said Gaza was in a "catastrophic situation of genocide" and urged the European Union to immediately suspend its cooperation deal with Israel.

The shipment of supplies, plasma and blood will be distributed among hospitals in the Palestinian territory in the coming days, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.

Such regulations are nothing new in Israel, where any written or visual publication deemed potentially harmful to the loosely defined concept of "national security" can be banned by law. Censorship predates the creation of Israel in 1948.

Tehran, Iran -- Iranian lawmakers voted Wednesday in favor of suspending cooperation with the United Nations' atomic energy watchdog, state TV said, after a 12-day war that saw Israeli and US strikes on nuclear sites. "The International Atomic Energy Agency, which refused to even marginally condemn the attack on Iran's...

"I think great progress is being made on Gaza," Trump said, adding that his special envoy Steve Witkoff had told him: "Gaza is very close." He linked his optimism about imminent "very good news" to Israel-Iran ceasefire.

Trump rejected that claim on Tuesday, posting on his Truth Social account that “the nuclear sites in Iran are completely destroyed.”

Civil defense spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP that 21 people were killed and around 150 wounded by Israeli fire near an aid point in central Gaza early Tuesday, and that another 25 were killed in a separate incident in south Gaza.

The main international and US oil contracts briefly bounced off their lows as Israel and Iran accused each other of breaking the ceasefire, but  then fell around five percent after Trump berated the two countries in an expletive-laced outburst.

As a fragile ceasefire with Israel took hold after 12 days of fighting that also included US strikes, Pezeshkian told his counterpart from the United Arab Emirates that the two countries "cannot impose unjust aspirations by force".

From meeting his spending demand to limiting the participation of Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky, everything is being done to try to avoid the chances of a damaging confrontation with the volatile leader.

No casualties reported in the attack that came a day after the US attacked three key nuclear facilities in Iran. Saudi Arabia and UAE have condemned Qatar strikes, which led to a more than 6 percent fall in oil prices.

Brussels, Belgium -- The EU said Monday that Israel must improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza or else face possible consequences, after a review of a cooperation deal found it fell short of its human-rights obligations. The European Union's top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, said the bloc hopes to use a...

British Airways cancelled flights between London's Heathrow Airport and Dubai and Doha on Sunday following the US strikes on Iran. Air France halted flights to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates until at least Tuesday inclusive, the airline said.

The United Nations special envoy for Syria denounced Sunday's attack on a church in Damascus that killed at least 20 people as a "heinous crime".

The US military says the GBU-57 -- also named Massive Ordnance Penetrator -- is designed to penetrate up to 200 feet (60 meters) underground before exploding. This differs from missiles or bombs that typically detonate their payload near or on impact.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told reporters in Istanbul the United States and Israel had "crossed a very big red line," asserting Iran would continue to defend itself "by all means necessary."

Iran's former arch-rival in the region, Saudi Arabia, which has been engaged in a Chinese-brokered détente with Tehran since 2023, expressed "great concern" over the attacks. Gulf countries have been engaged in a diplomatic frenzy for solutions since Israel launched its air campaign on their neighbor Iran on June 13.

"No radioactive effects were detected on the environment of the Kingdom and the Arab Gulf states as a result of the American military targeting of Iran's nuclear facilities," the kingdom's Nuclear and Radiological Regulatory Commission wrote in a post on X.

Trump called on Iran to "agree to end this war," saying that "now is the time for peace." But it remains to be seen whether the strikes will push Tehran to deescalate the conflict, or to widen it further by attacking American bases of closing the strait of Hormuz.

UNHCR, the UN's refugee agency, said the intensity of the attacks between the two sides was already triggering population movements in both countries. Such movements had already been reported from Tehran and other parts of Iran, it said, with some people crossing into neighboring countries.

Protesters in the British capital waved Palestinian flags, donned keffiyeh scarves and carried signs including "Stop arming Israel" and "No war on Iran" as they marched in the sweltering heat.

Israel's military said a strike in Qom south of Tehran successfully targeted top Iranian official Saeed Izadi, in charge of coordination with Hamas, adding two other commanders from Iran's Revolutionary Guards were also killed overnight.

"We have embarked on the most complex campaign in our history to remove a threat of such magnitude, against such an enemy. We must be ready for a prolonged campaign," Zamir said in a video statement to Israelis.

Rafael Grossi, director of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), told the UN Security Council that he has not yet detected radiation resulting from Israel's week-long military assault against Iran, including attacks on nuclear sites.

Civil defense spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP that six people were killed while waiting for aid in the southern Gaza Strip and 15 others in a central area known as the Netzarim corridor, where thousands of Palestinians have gathered daily in the hope of receiving food rations.

As most currencies in the region are pegged to the US dollar, monetary policy follows the decisions taken in Washington, with policymakers opting to lock the rate at the level it has been since December.