Donning a helmet inside a pearl silver sports sedan, Rana Almimoni skids and drifts around a Riyadh park, engine roaring, tyres screeching and clouds of dust billowing from the back.

Israel reopened its only crossing for people with the Gaza Strip yesterday, a week after shutting it over violence along the border with the

Syrian rescue worker Samir Salim found his mother's body under their collapsed house, but there was no time for a funeral.

Iran yesterday demanded the UN's top court suspend US nuclear-linked sanctions against Tehran, accusing Washington of plotting its "economic strangulation".

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani yesterday rejected the resignations of the intelligence chief and the interior and defence ministers, as the government faces fierce criticism over an increasingly deadly insurgency.

The head of Islamic State in Afghanistan, Abu Saad Erhabi, was killed in a strike on the group's hideouts in Nangarhar province on Saturday night, authorities said yesterday.

Iran's parliament sacked the minister of economic affairs and finance yesterday, state media said, amid a sharp fall in the rial currency and a deterioration in the economic situation.

A suicide bomb blast killed at least two people yesterday outside an election commission office in the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad, officials said.

Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, in his first purported speech in nearly a year, has called on followers to fight on despite recent defeats, according to an audio recording posted on the group's media outlet.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump's national security adviser met in Jerusalem yesterday and

Israeli soldiers and a Palestinian militant exchanged gunfire on the Gaza border yesterday, the army said, despite efforts to reach a long-

The Taliban yesterday rejected an Afghan government offer of a ceasefire and they would persist with their attacks, two militant

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani declared a provisional ceasefire with the Taliban in a televised broadcast yesterday following a recent

More than two million pilgrims are taking part this year, according to official figures, compared to 1.86 million in 2016 and just 24,000 in 1941.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday called on Europe to financially contribute to the reconstruction of Syria to allow millions of refugees to return home.

Qatar yesterday said its citizens were unable to take part in the annual hajj pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia as the two countries remain bitterly locked in a diplomatic dispute.

Israel yesterday closed its only crossing for people with the Gaza Strip except for humanitarian cases after weekend border clashes, the latest tightening of its blockade on the Palestinian enclave despite truce efforts.

Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has signed off on a law tightening controls over the internet in the country, the official gazette said

Saudi Arabian Airlines says a system failure has resulted in disruption of flights, as the kingdom prepares to host the annual hajj pilgrimage. So far more than one million pilgrims have arrived in the kingdom, according to state media. The hajj is set to take place from August 19-24.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan yesterday said Turkey would boycott US electronic goods in retaliation for punitive sanctions by Washington against Ankara over the detention of an American pastor.