Hardening its stance on the dress code, Iran has fired a bank manager who served an unveiled woman, according to local media even as demonstrations triggered by the mandatory head covering rule shake the country. Women in Iran are required to cover their heads, necks, and hair.

Moradkhani is the daughter of Khamenei's sister Badri who fell out with her family in the 1980s and fled to Iraq at the peak of the war with Iran's neighbor.  

Qamishli, Syria -- Thousands of Kurds protested on Sunday in the Syrian city of Qamishli against Turkish cross-border strikes targeting Kurdish groups in the country's northeast, an AFP photojournalist said. One week ago Turkey began a barrage of air strikes against the semi-autonomous Kurdish zones in north and northeastern Syria,...

The United States will provide Jordan with over US$845 million in annual financial support, officials in Amman said as the country remains heavily dependent on foreign aid. Prime Minister Bisher al-Khasawneh was present at the signing ceremony for the allocation of annual financial support of $845.1 million, a Jordanian government...

DUBAI, UAE - Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President, Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai has approved the Dubai Countryside and Rural Areas Development Master Plan, spanning an area of 2,216 square kilometers. The Plan seeks to preserve the nature of areas including Lehbab, Margham, Al Marmoom, Al...

National Geographic's "Retrograde" follows an Afghan general who tried in vain to hold back the Taliban advance in summer 2021, while Netflix's "In Her Hands" tells the story of the country's youngest female mayor, who had to flee as the Talib took over.

Several European leaders were in Kyiv on Saturday to commemorate the victims of the 1932-33 Holodomor -- Ukrainian for "death by starvation" -- which is regarded by Kyiv as a deliberate act of genocide by Stalin's regime.

SHARM EL SHEIKH, EGYPT - The Ministry of Climate Change and Environment (MoCCAE) organized an awareness session on the UAE Climate Change Research Network (CCRN). The event highlighted the importance of research in exploring innovative climate change mitigation and adaptation solutions. It also emphasized the Network’s role in strengthening the...

COPENHAGEN, DENMARK - Denmark's autonomous Faroe Islands have renewed a fishing quota deal with Russia for one year despite Moscow's invasion of Ukraine, a local minister said on Saturday. "The Faroe Islands are totally right to extend their existing fishing agreement with Russia," the North Atlantic archipelago's minister of fisheries...

TEHRAN, IRAN - Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Saturday that negotiating with the United States would not put an end to the "troubles" that have rocked the Islamic republic over the past two months. Iran has seen weeks of demonstrations sparked by the September 16 death in custody...

US authorities announced a ban on the import or sale of communications equipment deemed "an unacceptable risk to national security" - including gear from Chinese giants Huawei Technologies and ZTE. Both firms have been on a roster of companies listed as a threat by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

Beirut, Lebanon—Two rockets targeted a US patrol base in northeastern Syria late Friday, the third such attack in nine days, US Central Command said. Centcom did not indicate who fired the rockets but said, in a statement, that they aimed at "coalition forces at the US patrol base in Al-Shaddadi, Syria"....

PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC - Members of the UAE-EU Parliamentary Friendship Group of the Federal National Council (FNC), headed by Sarah Mohammed Falkinaz met with the members of the UAE-Czech Parliamentary Friendship Committee, headed by Margita Balaštíková. The meeting was also attended by Afraa Al Basty, FNC Assistant Secretary-General for Parliamentary...

Authorities have ordered nearly six million residents of eight districts in Zhengzhou, in the central province of Henan, not to leave the area for the next five days, setting up barriers around "high-risk" apartment buildings and checkpoints to restrict travel.

DHAKA, BANGLADESH - The UAE participated in the Indian Ocean Rim Association's (IORA) 22nd Council of Ministers (COM) meeting and the 24th Committee of Senior Officials (CSO) meeting held in Dhaka, Bangladesh from November 22 to 24. The UAE delegation was led by Ahmed Ali Al Sayegh, Minister of State...

The Islamic republic has launched a series of cross-border missile and drone strikes on Iranian-Kurdish opposition groups, based in Iraq, which it blames for stoking protests back home over the death of Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini. "Iran recently carried out operations against terrorist groups in northern Iraq as it had...

The United Nations had previously handled the repatriation of refugees from Libya, but the deal between authorities in the west, east and south has enabled the Interior Ministry's agency tackling illegal migration to work in a unified way across the country.

The two leaders reviewed existing areas of partnership and explored opportunities to develop ties further.

Lawmaker Michel Moawad, who is seen as close to the United States, won the support of 42 of parliament's 128 MPs, but his tally fell well short of the required majority and was exceeded by the number of spoilt ballots cast by pro-Hezbollah lawmakers.

With 25 votes in favour, six opposed and 16 countries abstaining, the UN's highest rights body agreed to create an international fact-finding mission to probe all violations connected with Iran's response to the ongoing protests.

Abu Dhabi, UAE---Abu Dhabi Fund for Development (ADFD) will finance a water project in Cordoba province of Argentina under an agreement signed with the Argentinian government. Costing, $28.8 million, the project will see building of modern water plants and expanding existing water stations in 26 villages of the province. The...

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia---Heavy rains in the Saudi coastal city of Jeddah on Thursday delayed flights, forced school suspensions and closed the road to Makkah, Islam's holiest city, state media reported. Jeddah, a city of roughly four million people positioned on the Red Sea, is often referred to as the "gateway...

BRUSSELS, BELGIUM - EU energy ministers met Thursday to debate measures to mitigate the energy crunch in Europe but were divided over a gas price cap proposal slammed by many as a "joke". They were to discuss a proposal by the European Commission, unveiled just two days earlier, that would...

The curbs in Zhengzhou are part of China's national zero-tolerance approach to Covid, which involves grueling lockdowns, travel restrictions and mass testing. However, nearly three years into the pandemic, Covid cases are now higher than they have ever been in China. There were 31,444 domestic cases on Wednesday, the National...

The King of Morocco Mohammed VI has reaffirmed its position on the Western Sahara dispute to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in a meeting in the Moroccan city of Fez. The king said the regional dispute should be settled "within the framework of sovereignty and territorial integrity of the kingdom."

Responding to Iranian calls for the deployment of border guards, Iraq will redeploy federal guards along its border with Iran and Turkey, after repeated bombardments from both neighboring countries against opposition groups in the autonomous Kurdistan region. Iran had publicly urged such a move.

A pick-up in aircraft orders boosted demand for big-ticket US manufactured goods in October, with numbers rising more than expected, government data showed. Durable goods orders rose one percent to $277.4 billion last month, up from a revised 0.3 percent bump in September, the Commerce Department reported. Transportation equipment led...

ALEXANDRIA, EGYPT - Jordan's Minister of Transport Maher Abu Al-Samen discussed with his Egyptian counterpart Kamel Al-Wazir ways and means of cementing bilateral cooperation in various spheres of transportation. The talks were held on the sidelines of the Council meeting of Arab Transport Ministers in Alexandria during which Al-Samen, also...

Jerusalem— At least one person was killed and 14 wounded in two separate explosions targeting bus stops in Jerusalem Wednesday, security and medical officials said, with Israel's public security minister calling them "attacks." An explosion at a bus stop at the western exit from Jerusalem killed a man and wounded...

Amman, Jordan—Jordan and the US have reviewed their strategic partnership in a meeting between King Abdullah of Jordan and Mark Takano, Chairman of the US House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs. The meeting covered the ties and the strategic partnership between Jordan and the United States, as well as means of...

Guterres told a conference in Morocco that the growing divisions are threatening global peace and security, provoking new confrontations and making it all the more difficult to resolve old conflicts. "Dangerous rhetoric is raising nuclear tensions," he warned.

With its revenues buoyed by high hydrocarbon prices over the past year, Algeria intends to double its defense budget to $23 billion next year. Africa's top natural gas producer has seen a spike in tensions with its neighbor Morocco over the disputed Western Sahara.

Under a landmark deal struck in 2015, Iran agreed to mothball the Fordo plant and limit its enrichment of uranium to 3.67 percent, sufficient for most civilian uses, as part of a package of restrictions on its nuclear activities aimed at preventing it covertly developing a nuclear weapon. In return,...

Russia has for months ... done everything possible to prevent any large-scale ground operation, Alexander Lavrentyev, Russian President Vladimir Putin's special envoy on Syria, said in the Kazakh capital, which is hosting a tripartite meeting between Russia, Turkey and Iran on Syria. The three countries are major players in the...

The agreements included one between the foreign affairs ministries of the two countries and an MoU in the agricultural and food security sector.

Overnight, Turkey hit dozens of targets in northern Syria as well as northern Iraq, a week after a bomb attack in Istanbul killed six people and left 81 wounded, which Ankara blamed on the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

Nearly ten years after their relations broke down, Egypt and Turkey are working to rebuild the ties as the Egyptian president shook hands with his Turkish counterpart in Qatar. The presidency in Cairo has termed it a new "beginning" in ties with Ankara.

There were more than a dozen blasts overnight Saturday to Sunday, some of which a team of experts from the agency on site had themselves seen, the IAEA said in a statement.

A final COP27 statement covering the broad efforts to grapple with a warming planet held the line on the aspirational goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius from pre-industrial levels. It also included language on renewable energy for the first time, while reiterating previous calls to accelerate "efforts...

Washington, US— US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is going to arrive in Doha on Monday to support Team USA in its first 2022 FIFA World Cup match and to attend the US-Qatar joint Strategic Dialogue, a State Department statement said. Blinken will recognize Doha’s important contribution to international sports...

Carrying out a second attack in a week, Iran has launched a fresh wave of strikes against Kurdish opposition groups based in Iraqi Kurdistan on Sunday. Tehran accuses the groups of instigating unrest in Iran, which has been rocked by two months of protests set off by the death of...

Two major opposition groups, the Shiite Al-Wefaq and the secular Waad, were prevented from presenting candidates. These parties were dissolved in 2016 and 2017 respectively. Turnout in the first round was 73 percent, authorities said, but no figures have been released for the second round.

Kyiv and Moscow traded accusations of shelling on the territory of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant that Russia controls in southern Ukraine. The UN atomic watchdog that has a team of experts at the plant - the biggest nuclear facility in Europe - said "powerful explosions" had occurred on Saturday...

GENEVA, SWITZERLAND - Switzerland regretted Sunday that the COP27 climate summit outcome does not impose obligations on the highest greenhouse gas polluters and said it would work to make sure they contribute properly. A fraught UN gathering in Egypt wrapped up Sunday with a landmark deal on funding to help...

When FIFA announced the deal for direct Israel-Qatar flights on November 10, it claimed that "Palestinian ticket holders and media" would be "able to travel on these chartered flights with no restrictions."

Activists on Sunday expressed alarm that Iran was implementing a major crackdown in a Kurdish-populated town that has seen intense anti-regime protests in the last few days.

The new museum, set to open in 2026, will follow the history of London from its earliest days through Roman habitation and seismic events such as the bubonic plague, the Great Fire of 1666 and World War II.

The summit drew praise for the "loss and damage" fund to help vulnerable countries cope with the destructive impacts of global warming. But there was also anger over a failure to push further ambition on cutting emissions in order to keep alive the aspirational goal of limiting global warming to...

Idlib, Syria— More than 300 children in rebel-held northwest Syria kicked off their own football World Cup on Saturday, with organizers hoping to shine a light on communities battered by 11 years of war. The excited children took part in the opening ceremony at the municipal stadium in Idlib, some wearing...

A week after the deadly Istanbul bombing, which Ankara blamed on the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), Turkey carried out air strikes hitting several towns across northern Syria. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Turkish military had carried out more than 20 air strikes across the two provinces.