Middle East

Israel will build a 100 billion shekel ($27 billion) rail expansion that will connect its outlying areas to metropolitan Tel Aviv and, in the future, could provide overland links to Saudi Arabia, ...

Courts in Israel have developed it beyond the confines of absurdity The political turmoil in Israel came to a climax last week when its parliament, the Knesset, passed a controversial ...

Islamic State on Friday claimed responsibility for an attack on the Sayeda Zeinab shrine south of the Syrian capital, Damascus, that killed several people and wounded others, the group said ...

Qatar will provide Ukraine with $100 million in humanitarian aid to support health, education and demining, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said on Friday. He made the announcement after talks with ...

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said parliament’s decision to trim Supreme Court powers to overrule government actions as part of his planned judicial overhaul would not hurt Israel’s ...

A bomb planted in a vehicle exploded outside the Sayeda Zeinab shrine city south of the Syrian capital Damascus on Thursday, killing several people and wounding others, Syrian state media ...

The International Monetary Fund cut its 2023 GDP growth projection for Saudi Arabia to 1.9 per cent in its latest World Economic Outlook update released on Tuesday, to reflect the impact of ...

U.S. officials will meet Taliban representatives and “technocratic professionals” from key Afghan ministries during a visit to Doha this week, the State Department said on Wednesday, adding they will ...

Morgan Stanley cut Israel’s sovereign credit to a “dislike stance” on Tuesday after the country’s parliament passed the first in a series of laws sought by Prime Minister ...

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu suffered a hit in the polls over a judicial law his hard-right coalition has championed as he attempts to navigate his gravest domestic crisis. Surveys published ...

Israeli doctors declared a strike on Tuesday and more army reservists have asked to halt service in a public backlash over the hard-right government’s ratification of the first stage ...

Israeli doctors began a 24-hour strike and black ads covered newspaper front pages on Tuesday in a furore over the hard-right government’s ratification of initial judicial changes that critics ...

The death toll as wildfires sweep across regions of Algeria has risen to 34 people including 10 soldiers on Monday, the interior ministry said, as a heatwave spreads across north Africa and ...

Israel’s parliament on Monday ratified the first bill of a judicial overhaul sought by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, after last-gasp compromise efforts collapsed and failed to ease a constitutional ...

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he was “doing excellently” after an overnight hospitalisation and vowed to be in parliament on Monday to vote for a disputed judicial reform that ...

Iraqi security forces fired tear gas to repel hundreds of protesters as they tried to get to the Danish Embassy in Baghdad early on Saturday after reports a Koran was ...

Thousands of Israelis opposed to a judicial overhaul planned by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu marched into Jerusalem on Saturday, as pressure mounts on his rightist government to scrap a bill ...

More than 1,000 Israeli Air Force reservists threatened on Friday to stop volunteering for service if the government goes ahead with a planned judicial overhaul, a key component of which comes ...

Iraq expelled the Swedish ambassador on Thursday in protest at a planned burning of the Koran in Stockholm that had prompted hundreds of protesters to storm and set alight the ...

The Cabinet gave its approval on Wednesday to an agreement aimed at preventing double taxation and tackling tax evasion related to income taxes. The agreement, along with its corresponding protocol, ...

Lebanon’s central bank will decommission the controversial exchange platform known as Sayrafa after governor Riad Salameh’s 30-year tenure ends this month, one of the institution’s vice governors ...

US President Joe Biden, after a lengthy delay, on Monday invited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the United States for an official visit at a date to be determined, ...

Israel has recognised Morocco’s sovereignty over the disputed territory of Western Sahara and is mulling opening a consulate there, a statement from the Israeli prime minister’s office said ...

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged to crack down on Monday against threatened no-shows for military reserve duty by opponents of his judicial overhaul plan, saying such actions were anti-democratic ...