BEIRUT (AFP) – Regime and Islamist-led forces were locked in clashes on Thursday (July 11) on the edge of an opposition bastion in north-west Syria after an extremist-led advance that killed 71 fighters overnight, a monitor said. Russian and regime aircraft have ramped up their deadly bombardment of the Idlib region – administered by Syria’s […]

Senate-approved agreement with Iran should replace 2015 nuclear deal that Trump abandoned last year, US envoy says. The Trump administration wants a Senate-approved agreement with Iran to replace the 2015 nuclear deal that the US president withdrew from last year, US Special Representative for Iran Brian Hook told Al Jazeera on Tuesday.  According to the Trump […]

ERBIL, Iraq (Reuters) – Two years after a failed independence bid plunged Iraq’s Kurdistan Region into months of instability, the new regional prime minister said his priority was strengthening ties with Baghdad, signalling dreams of self-rule should be put on hold. Masrour Barzani, sworn in as regional prime minister on Wednesday (July 10), told Reuters […]

The US must act on a report into Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s death, a UN expert has warned. “Silence is not an option. Speaking up is required but not enough. We have to act,” Agnes Callamard, a human rights expert, said. Her investigation concluded that Khashoggi’s death at the Saudi embassy in Istanbul in October […]

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration imposed sanctions on three senior Hezbollah officials in Lebanon on Tuesday, accusing them of having a “malign agenda” to support the Iranian government. The sanctions were the first to directly target members of Lebanon’s Parliament and underscored the White House’s intention to ratchet up pressure on Iran by punishing groups […]

Rapper Nicki Minaj has cancelled a scheduled performance in Saudi Arabia next week, citing her support for the rights of women and the LGBT community. Her headline billing at the festival in Jeddah triggered an outcry from critics of the country’s human rights record. Others questioned how her revealing outfits and explicit lyrics would go […]

Iran threatened to restart deactivated centrifuges and ramp up its enrichment of uranium to 20pc purity as its next potential big moves away from a 2015 nuclear agreement that Washington abandoned last year. The threats, made by the spokesman for Tehran’s nuclear agency, would go far beyond the small steps Iran has taken in the […]

TEHERAN (DPA) – At least 64 people were injured on Monday (July 8) when a 5.7-magnitude earthquake rattled south-western Iran, state media reported. The quake occurred at a depth of 10 kilometres near the city of Masjed Soleyman in Khuzestan Province, according to the US Geological Survey, which tracks seismic events worldwide. Iran’s semi-official news […]

LONDON — Iran has breached a crucial limit on the level of uranium enrichment set out in the 2015 nuclear deal, the country’s atomic energy agency said on Monday, as China, another signatory to the deal, accused the United States of “bullying” Tehran with crippling economic sanctions. Behrouz Kamalvandi, a spokesman for Iran’s atomic energy […]

Journalists’ union says a think-tank report on Turkish journalists working for foreign media ‘incites people to hatred’. A union of Turkish journalists has filed a legal complaint against an Ankara-based think-tank, alleging that a report published by it makes dozens of journalists working for foreign media organisations “public targets”. The 202-page report, which was released by the Foundation […]