DUBAI (UAE) – Saudi-owned Al Arabiya TV reported on Saturday that the Riyadh-led coalition fighting in Yemen intercepted a drone carrying explosives launched by Iran-backed Houthis towards Abha airport. The report cited the spokesperson of the coalition.
Middle East
PARIS (FRANCE) – The ‘E3’ group of leading European powers – France, Germany and the United Kingdom – on Friday slammed Iran’s decision to produce uranium metal. They said it was breaching commitments made by Iran to the international community. The United Nations’ nuclear watchdog had said earlier this week that Iran had gone
BEIRUT (LEBANON) – In what is seen as a rare event, the US ambassador to Lebanon visited a Hezbollah stronghold in Beirut on Thursday to take part in the memorial service for slain political researcher and activist Lokman Slim. He was shot dead and found in his car last Thursday in south Lebanon – the […]
DUBAI (UAE) – The United Arab Emirates’ first mission to Mars reached the red planet and entered orbit on Tuesday after a seven-month, 494 million-km (307 million-mile) journey, allowing it to start sending data about the Martian atmosphere and climate. The Mars programme is part of the UAE’s efforts to develop its scientific and technological […]
DUBAI (UAE) – Dubai residents who wish to get a taste of social distancing visit RoboCafe, where robots have replaced their human masters. German-manufactured robots take customers’ orders, prepare it and deliver it to their tables. “It’s a good idea, especially right now,” said Jamal Ali Hassan, an Emirati who had ordered a piping hot […]
CAIRO/GAZA (EGYPT) – Egypt on Tuesday opened its Rafah border crossing with the Gaza strip until further notice, Egyptian and Palestinian sources said, a move described as an incentive for reconciliation between the main Palestinian factions, meeting in Cairo. Leaders of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah faction, which controls the West Bank, and of
DUBAI (UAE) – The Iranian government initiated an inoculation drive against COVID-19 on Tuesday. At first, the focus will be on hospital intensive care personnel in the country which is the hardest hit in the Middle East. State television beamed footage of Health Minister Saeed Namaki’s son Parsa Namaki receiving the first dose of the […]
KOJO (IRAQ) – Thikran Kamiran Yousif was 15 when Islamic State fighters surrounded his village in northern Iraq, rounded up residents and slaughtered several hundred of them, including his father, brother, grandfather and aunt. Nearly seven years later, Yousif has returned to the village of Kojo in Sinjar district for the reburial of his […]
JERUSALEM (ISRAEL) – It’s Saturday night in Jerusalem and a group of protesters dressed in fluorescent pink are preparing to join a weekly demonstration outside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s official residence demanding he quit. They call themselves “The Pink Front”, and participate in anti-Netanyahu protests that are held across
ISTANBUL (TURKEY) – Four people were formally arrested as part of an investigation into protests against President Tayyip Erdogan’s appointment of a rector at one of the country’s top universities, an Istanbul prosecutor’s office said on Sunday. The protests began last month over Erdogan’s appointment of Melih Bulu, an academic and former