KUWAIT CITY (AFP) – Kuwait is holding parliamentary elections Saturday (Dec 5) under the shadow of Covid-19, with facilities laid on for citizens infected with the disease to vote in special polling stations. The oil-rich country has enforced some of the strictest regulations in the Gulf to combat the spread of the coronavirus, imposing a […]

TEHERAN (BLOOMBERG) – Iran accused Israel and the United States of being behind the assassination of one of its top nuclear scientists on Friday (Nov 27) and vowed revenge, sharply escalating tensions in the Persian Gulf in the final weeks of Donald Trump’s presidency. Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was the head of research and innovation at Iran’s […]

Here’s what happened: A brazen killing took place in an ambush. Iran’s top nuclear scientist, who American and Israeli intelligence have long charged was behind secret programs to design an atomic warhead, was shot and killed in an ambush on Friday as he was traveling in a vehicle in northern Iran, Iranian state media reported. […]

RIYADH (AFP) – “The whole world is watching,” a voice off-screen told Saudi Arabia’s King Salman as he opened the annual G-20 summit on Saturday (Nov 21), in what might be 2020’s highest-stakes video call. The virtual “gathering” of the Group of 20 (G-20) rich nations seeks to tackle the novel coronavirus pandemic and the […]

CAIRO — The executive director of one of Egypt’s leading human rights organizations was arrested Thursday night, the group said, joining two staff members detained earlier this week and thousands of opposition figures, protesters and activists already in prison. The rights group, the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, is one of the few remaining organizations […]

ISTANBUL (AFP) – US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo paid a fraught visit to Istanbul on Tuesday (Nov 17) that included no official meetings and an agenda focused on religious freedoms that Ankara dismissed as “irrelevant”. Relations between Washington and its strategic Nato ally have remained strained despite a personal friendship between US President Donald […]

BEIRUT, Lebanon — The Syrian government hosted a lavish conference in the capital, Damascus, this week aimed at trying to get the more than six million refugees who fled the country’s civil war to come home. They have been blocked from returning, President Bashar al-Assad told attendees, by Western nations that have damaged Syria’s economy […]

DOHA (AFP) – Punitive measures taken against Qatar, enforced by a Riyadh-led coalition of countries as part of a regional row, breach human rights and should be lifted, an independent UN expert said on Thursday (Nov 12). Saudi led its allies – the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt – to cut ties with Qatar […]

JERUSALEM — A helicopter carrying members of a multinational peacekeeping force crashed on Thursday near Sharm el Sheikh in the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt, killing six Americans, a French citizen and a Czech citizen. The peacekeeping force, Multinational Force and Observers, said nine of its members were involved in the crash and eight had died. […]

JERUSALEM (REUTERS) – Israel’s parliament on Tuesday (Nov 10) approved a US-brokered deal establishing formal relations with Bahrain, by a vote of 62 lawmakers in favour and 14 opposed. The Middle East countries signed a joint communique on Oct 18 to formalise their nascent ties. Bahrain is one of three Arab countries – along with […]