Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei yesterday said that the outgoing government’s experience of engaging with world powers including the United States shows that “trusting the West does not work”.

Lebanon’s new prime minister-designate Najib Mikati was due to start consultations with leading political parties yesterday with a view to forming a long-awaited government. 

At least 57 people drowned on Monday after a boat capsized off the Libyan coast near Khums, the latest tragedy in the Mediterranean where nearly 1,000 have perished this year, the UN’s International Organization for Migration (IOM) said.  

Saudi Arabia will impose a three-year travel ban on citizens travelling to countries on the kingdom's 'red list' under efforts to curb the spread of coronavirus and its new variants, state news agency SPA said on Tuesday.

Lebanese lawmakers yesterday tasked ex-premier and billionaire Najib Mikati with forming a government and ending one year of political deadlock that has crippled the economy.

Israel hit Gaza with air strikes late Sunday after incendiary balloons launched from the Palestinian enclave caused fires in the Jewish state, with no reported injuries on either side.

A number of people demonstrated in the centre of the Iranian capital Tehran yesterday against power cuts, the state television website reported, with some demonstrators chanting “political” slogans.

Saudi Arabia today announced worldwide resumption of Umrah for pilgrims from 1st Muharram 1443, likely to fall on August 10 following a successful Hajj season.

Israeli carriers yesterday launched the first direct commercial flights between the Jewish state and Morocco since the countries normalised diplomatic relations in a US-brokered deal last year. 

Saudi Arabia’s Hima, a mountainous area that is home to a large collection of rock art images dating back thousands of years, has been added to UNESCO’s World Heritage List, the agency announced on Saturday.

A drone attack has been carried out on a military base in Iraqi Kurdistan that hosts American troops, without causing any casualties, the US-led coalition said yesterday.

Amid the raging controversy over its surveillance software Pegasus, Israeli cybersecurity company NSO Group has defended itself by saying that millions of people around the world sleep well at night and walk in the streets safely due to such technologies available with intelligence and law enforcement agencies. 

The Taliban’s claim to hold 90 percent of Afghanistan’s borders is an “absolute lie”, the defence ministry said yesterday, insisting government forces were in control of the country’s frontiers.

Former UN rights chief Navi Pillay will lead the United Nations’ open-ended inquiry into “systematic” abuses in Israel and the Palestinian territories, it was announced on Thursday.

Inspired by her late father's career, Mona decided to join the military and the first group of Saudi women soldiers to work in Islam's holiest sites, where they are helping secure the haj annual pilgrimage.

American ice-cream brand Ben & Jerry's on Monday said it would stop marketing its products in the occupied Palestinian territories, bowing to Palestinian pressure campaigns and saying that selling there was "inconsistent" with company values.

A suicide bomber killed at least 35 people and wounded dozens in a crowded market in the Sadr City neighbourhood of Baghdad on Monday, the eve of the Eid al-Adha festival, security and hospital sources said.

Muslim pilgrims ascended Saudi Arabia’s Mount Arafat yesterday in the high point of this year’s hajj, being held in downsized form and under coronavirus restrictions for the second year running.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan yesterday hit out an EU court ruling allowing employers in some cases to ban staff from wearing headscarves at work.

Spyware Pegasus, which is sold by the NSO Group of Israel, may have been used to conduct surveillance on about 300 Indians, including two serving Cabinet ministers at the Centre, three opposition leaders, a Constitutional authority, government officials, scientists and about 40 journalists, according to French media nonprofit, Forbidden Stories, and Amnesty International.