ROJ, SYRIA (AFP) – In a Syrian detention camp for people linked to the Islamic State group, French mother-of-five Emilie Konig has swapped her all-engulfing black robe for a sweatshirt and baseball cap. The 36-year-old widow – who is on UN and US blacklists of dangerous militants, accused of recruiting ISIS fighters and inciting attacks […]

An Iranian military vessel stationed in the Red Sea was damaged by an apparent Israeli mine attack on Tuesday in an escalation of the shadowy naval skirmishing that has characterized the two adversaries’ exchanges in recent years. The damage to the vessel, which Iranian media identified as the Saviz, came as progress was reported on […]

CAIRO — Downtown Cairo came to a near standstill Saturday night as 22 mummies were moved from a museum where they had resided for more than a century to a new home, transported atop custom-made vehicles in a glittering, meticulously planned procession. The fanfare — broadcast live on state television and complete with a military […]

DAMASCUS (AFP) – Inside the emergency room of a hospital of the Syrian capital, an elderly woman with Covid-19 waited for a bed at an intensive care unit packed with coronavirus patients. Sitting on a wheelchair barely an arms-length from another patient, the woman in her seventies tilted her head back as a doctor wedged […]

For the second time in three years, the threat of widespread famine hangs over the war-torn country, where millions are displaced and struggle daily to find food. By Shuaib Almosawa and Ben Hubbard AL HARF, Yemen — The mother’s first challenge when her spindly 8-month-old son came down with a fever, diarrhea and vomiting was […]

LONDON – Iranian government officials are struggling to deflect accusations that their recent conclusion of a landmark “25-Year Strategic Roadmap” agreement with China boosting trade, investment and military relations contains secret clauses which violate Iran’s national sovereignty. Since the agreement was signed on Saturday (March 27), sporadic protests have erupted in some Iranian cities, with […]

DUBAI (BLOOMBERG) – The United Arab Emirates will start producing China’s Sinopharm vaccine next month in a deal that deepens Beijing’s influence in the Arab Gulf, long a bastion of United States power. Gulf Pharmaceutical Industries PSC said on Sunday (March 28) that it signed a contract to start manufacturing the vaccine from April. With […]

ISMAILIA, EGYPT (BLOOMBERG) – The company battling to dislodge a ship that’s blocking the Suez Canal said a crane will arrive at the location this weekend to begin the painstaking process of removing some of the vessel’s cargo in a bid to help it refloat. The Ever Given, a 400-metre long container ship with almost US$1 […]

JERUSALEM (REUTERS) – Israel has administered two doses of Covid-19 vaccine to more than half its population, the health minister said on Thursday (March 25), a world-beating roll-out that has helped the country emerge from pandemic closures. Distribution of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in Israel began last December, with eligibility extended to citizens and residents over […]

TEHRAN (BLOOMBERG) – In 1975, Donna Stein embarked on a semi-secret, two-year effort to build a contemporary art collection for the empress of Iran. Before she was hired as part of the empresses’s private secretariat, Stein was an assistant curator in the prints and illustrated books department at MoMA and was given very little direction […]