Dubai again has loosened laws governing alcohol sales and the possession of liquor as the sheikhdom tries to claw its way out of an economic depression worsened by the coronavirus pandemic. The...More
Mali's president said on Wednesday he had resigned to avoid "bloodshed" after he was detained in a military coup, whose leaders pledged new elections to resolve a spiralling political crisis in the...More
A UN-backed tribunal on Tuesday found a member of the Hezbollah Shia movement guilty over the 2005 murder of former Lebanese prime minister Rafic Hariri, but cleared three other suspects after a...More
Algeria has launched Islamic finance products in a bid to attract money from the informal market, but bankers warn it will take more to fix the country's struggling economy. Falling oil prices and...More
The European Union urged Turkey on Sunday to "immediately" stop exploring for gas in a disputed area of the eastern Mediterranean, as tensions rise with other countries in the region. The call came...More
Egypt approved a new law on Sunday to protect the identity of women who come forward to report sexual harassment or assault in a move that aimed to encourage women and girls to report cases of sexual...More
A woman in Bahrain seen smashing statues of the Hindu deity Lord Ganesha in a video published online has been charged with intentional damage and publically insulting a religious symbol. The police...More
Cologne have parted company with a club member who objected to a mosque being depicted on the club's jersey, while fellow Bundesliga side Bayern Munich are investigating allegations of racism in...More
The UAE's decision to normalise ties with Israel could propel Saudi Arabia to deepen its furtive relations with the Jewish state as Riyadh seeks to entice investments to fund an ambitious economic...More
The UN Security Council on Friday resoundingly defeated a U.S. resolution to indefinitely extend the UN arms embargo on Iran, with the Trump administration getting support from only the Dominican...More
French President Emmanuel Macron urged fresh Middle East peace talks after Israel and the UAE agreed to normalise ties in a move praised by many Western governments, including Paris, but unanimously...More
Telephone service between the United Arab Emirates and Israel began working on Sunday as the two countries opened diplomatic ties, part of a deal brokered by the U.S. that required Israel to halt its...More
India's death toll from the coronavirus hit 50,000 on Monday, with more than 900 new fatalities reported in 24 hours, health ministry data showed. The country last week overtook Britain with the...More
The St. George Hospital where Soha Khalaf works as a nurse lies less than a mile from Beirut port. She had no time to recover from the enormous explosion that blasted over the city. The ceiling...More
A campaign on a rare scale uniting activists and personalities inside Iran and out is pressing Tehran not to execute men detained over anti-government protests, but faces an uphill struggle. In the...More
Lebanon's Parliament on Thursday approved a state of emergency in Beirut in its first session since the catastrophic August 4 explosion, granting the military sweeping powers amid rising popular...More
Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, the first Gulf leader to strike a deal normalising relations with Israel, has long been seen as a strongman who has driven the UAE's rise to diplomatic prominence...More
United Nations experts have accused senior army and intelligence officials in Mali of deliberately obstructing a shaky 2015 peace accord, originally designed to reduce violence in the war-torn West...More
The United Arab Emirates announced on Thursday that Israel had agreed to abandon plans to annex parts of the occupied West Bank in exchange for normalised relations. But later statements by Israel...More
Afghan authorities said on Friday they had started to release 400 Taliban prisoners, the final hurdle in launching long-delayed peace talks between the two warring sides. A group of 80 prisoners were...More
The Israeli army said its fighter jets struck a number of Hamas targets early on Wednesday morning, in response to incendiary balloons launched into southern Israel from the Gaza Strip in recent days...More
A Rohingya Muslim has been barred from standing in Myanmar's upcoming election, in a decision decried by rights groups as discriminatory and a symptom of the "ongoing genocide" against the persecuted...More
An outcry is rising in Somalia as parliament considers a bill that would allow child marriage once a girl's sexual organs mature and would allow forced marriage as long as the family gives their...More
Two people died after a "derogatory" Facebook post about the Prophet Muhammad sparked riots in India's IT hub Bangalore that saw clashes between police and thousands of protesters, authorities said...More
An Islamic court in northern Nigeria sentenced a 22-year old singer to death on Monday for blasphemy against the Prophet Muhammad in a song he circulated on the messaging platform WhatsApp in March...More
Angry and grieving protesters on Tuesday read aloud the names of at least 171 people killed in last week's explosion at Beirut port and called for the removal of Lebanon's president and other...More
Lebanese security officials warned the prime minister and president last month that 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate stored in Beirut’s port posed a security risk and could destroy the capital if it...More
A six-nation bloc of Gulf Arab nations torn apart by internal strife endorsed an extension of a United Nations arms embargo on Iran, just two months before it is set to expire. The Gulf Cooperation...More
Syria's capital is facing a "terrible" spike in COVID-19 infections, with hospitals packed, patients scouring Facebook for advice and medics fearing the virus is spreading faster than clinics can...More
President Donald Trump will meet Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi in Washington later this month, the White House said on Friday, highlighting a turn-around in relations since the U.S.-...More
Iran said on Monday that countries should refrain from politicising the massive blast in Beirut last week, and that the United States should lift sanctions against Lebanon. "The blast should not be...More
Turkey's president called a maritime deal between Greece and Egypt "worthless'' on Friday and said his country would resume its disputed oil and gas exploration in the Eastern Mediterranean. Egypt...More
An emergency donor conference on Sunday for blast-stricken Lebanon raised pledges worth nearly 253 million euros ($298 million) for immediate humanitarian relief, the French presidency said. Those...More
Lebanese police fired tear gas to try to disperse rock-throwing protesters blocking a road near parliament in Beirut on Sunday in a second day of anti-government demonstrations triggered by last week...More
Even as Pakistan this week drew international attention to the plight of Muslims in Indian Kashmir, Islamabad stayed conspicuously silent about another embattled Muslim community – China's Uighur...More
Some families say it is better to know and mourn. Others say finally learning what happened is worse than dying themselves. Hundreds of victims of Syria's torture chambers are only now being...More
After Turkey turned Istanbul's Hagia Sophia museum back to a mosque, Muslims in Athens fear their own official place of worship, delayed for over a decade, will be held back again. The project to...More
An Indonesian has been jailed for destroying a Koran in a rare case of a Muslim being convicted on blasphemy charges in the Muslim-majority nation. The district court in Sumatra's Medan city...More
Lebanon's diaspora, estimated at nearly three times the size of the tiny country's population of five million, has stepped up to provide assistance following the massive explosion that laid waste to...More
The colours of the Lebanese flag lit up the Israeli city of Tel Aviv on Wednesday in solidarity with the country following Tuesday’s deadly blast in Beirut. It was a rare show of support from Israel...More
Lebanese security forces late on Thursday fired tear gas to disperse dozens of anti-government demonstrators angered by a cataclysmic blast widely seen as the most shocking expression yet of their...More
Residents of Beirut awoke to a scene of utter devastation on Wednesday, a day after a massive explosion at the port sent shock waves across the Lebanese capital, killing at least 100 people and...More
In Iraq's oil-rich south, the scorching summer months pose painful new choices in the age of coronavirus : stay at home in the sweltering heat with electricity cut off for hours, or go out and risk...More
Australia’s ambassador to Iran has met with a British-Australian academic reported to be serving a 10-year sentence for espionage and says she is in good health, Canberra said on Tuesday. Kylie Moore...More
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will on Wednesday lay the foundation for a temple at a flashpoint holy site exactly a year after imposing direct rule on Muslim-majority Kashmir – twin triumphs...More
Egypt on Tuesday called for a suspension of meetings with Ethiopia on Addis Ababa's massive dam construction project on the Nile. Sudan threatened to withdraw from the talks saying Ethiopia insisted...More
Countries around the world have been paying tribute to victims of two deadly blasts in Beirut on Tuesday and sending offers of assistance to Lebanon, a country already reeling from the effects of...More
Thousands of people in Pakistan rallied in major cities on Wednesday to mark one year since neighbouring India scrapped the special status of the disputed region of Kashmir. Political leaders, trade...More
An arbitration committee has upheld a decision by Germany's Social Democrats (SPD) to expel a former Berlin senator and author accused of racism and anti-Islam rhetoric following a decade-long legal...More
Mali's army suffered new losses in twin attacks on Sunday that left at least five soldiers dead as the Sahel country was mired in a political crisis sparking international concern. Five soldiers were...More
The scars of last summer remain in Soura, an enclave that became a symbol of Kashmir's resistance to India's central government a year ago on Wednesday. Coils of concertina wire, remnants of...More
A UN-backed tribunal will give its verdict on Friday on the 2005 murder of former Lebanese premier Rafic Hariri, but questions will remain over a long and costly trial whose suspects remain at large...More
The Moria refugee camp on the Greek island of Lesbos has burned to the ground. The situation is dire, but it was already grave before fire swept through Europe's largest and most overcrowded refugee camp.
