Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates – (AFP): Israel’s Prime Minister Naftali Bennett landed in the United Arab Emirates on Thursday for talks with President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, following a free trade deal signed last month. Bennett’s second visit to UAE since the countries normalised relations in a US-brokered 20...
Ramallah, Palestinian Territories – (AFP): A Palestinian died in the occupied West Bank Thursday after being shot in the stomach by Israeli forces, the Palestinian health ministry said, in the latest bloodshed in the territory. The ministry said 27-year-old Mahmud Fayez Abu Ayhour was killed in Halhul, north of the flashpoint city of Heb...
RAMALLAH, Palestine – Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh has accused Israel of seeking to turn the Al-Aqsa Mosque complex in occupied East Jerusalem into a Jewish synagogue. Addressing a Palestinian event on the historical status of Al-Aqsa Mosque in the West Bank city of Al-Bireh, Shtayyeh said 55 years of Israeli excavations ...
KUWAIT CITY, Kuwait – Kuwait has said that it plans to appoint an ambassador and a project coordinator in war-torn Yemen. Kuwaiti Crown Prince Sheikh Mishal Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah held talks with the head of the Yemeni Presidential Leadership Council, Rashad Al-Alimi. During their meeting, the crown prince underlined Kuwait’s support...
WASHINGTON – China and Russia have sought to explain their vetoes on a new Security Council resolution that would have tightened sanctions on North Korea for its repeated ballistic missile tests. China blamed the US for simmering tensions on the Korean Peninsula in the first such instance of a permanent Council member explaining their de...
PARIS – France is the second-largest European investment destination for Qatar after the UK, with assets of more than 25 billion euros ($26.7 billion), according to a recent study. The Gulf country has 42 companies in France through direct holdings or firms mostly managed by the sovereign wealth fund Qatar Investment Authority, a study c...
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AA) – Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr on Thursday called on his parliamentary bloc members to resign over the failure to form a new government in Iraq, according to the official Iraqi news agency. The al-Sadr bloc has 73 legislators in the 329-seat parliament, following parliamentary elections held in October last year. “...
BRUSSELS (AA) – The European Parliament on Thursday condemned the “brutal and arbitrary repression” of Uyghurs and Turkic people in China’s Xinjiang region, and called on Beijing to release those detained. In a resolution adopted by show of hands, EU lawmakers condemned “in the strongest possible terms the fact that the Uyghur community ...
BAKU (AA) – Azerbaijan summoned Thursday the Indian envoy over insulting remarks on Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) by officials of India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Last week, ruling party spokesperson Nupur Sharma and Naveen Kumar Jindal, the BJP’s Delhi media head, made insulting remarks about the prophet, trigge...
BAGHDAD (AA) – Saudi-Iranian talks hosted by Iraq have reached an “advanced level”, Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi said on Wednesday. Iraq “has played an important role in bringing the views of the regional countries closer by hosting dialogue between Saudi Arabia and Iran,” al-Kadhimi told a press conference in the capital Bagh...
