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The recent partial US government shutdown cost the American economy twice as much as the money President Donald Trump had requested to build a wall on the border with Mexico, the Congressional Budget Office has revealed. The 35-day impasse, which began on December 22 after congressional Democrats refused to give …

India’s main opposition Congress party has offered to roll out a means-tested universal basic income if it wins the country’s fast-approaching general election. Congress’s leader Rahul Gandhi described the scheme as “the first of its kind in the world”. “We have decided that every poor person in India would be …

Ethiopia has tripled the size of its main airport as it gets set to be Africa’s gateway hub. Ethiopia’s capital is set to cement its place as Africa’s leading aviation hub with an expanded airport terminal which triples it passenger capacity. Last year, Addis Ababa overtook Dubai as the leading …

Letting a toddler spend lots of time using screens may delay their development of skills such as language and sociability, according to a large Canadian study. The research, which tracked nearly 2,500 two-year-olds, is the latest piece of evidence in the debate about how much screen time is safe for …

  Bahrain’s supreme court, whose verdicts are final, on Monday upheld a life term for Shiite opposition leader Sheikh Ali Salman for spying for Gulf rival Qatar, a judicial source said. Salman, who headed the Al-Wefaq group, was convicted in November of “communicating with Qatari officials… to overthrow constitutional order,” …

  Army units destroyed fortified positions and gatherings of terrorist organizations in Hama northern countryside and Idleb southern countryside in retaliation to their repeated breaches of the de-escalation zone agreement and the attacks they launched on military posts and safe villages and towns. Sources  reported  that army units conducted concentrated …

Mining giant Vale says it will curb dividends for shareholders and halt bonuses for managers. Its statement comes as it starts to investigate the dam breach in Brazil which killed 58 people. It is also setting up a committee to offer help to the victims. Rescue teams searching for 300 …

British Prime Minister Theresa May intends to give the UK parliament a second chance to approve a Brexit deal with the European Union as soon as possible. A spokesman for May said on Monday that the government could hold a second vote in the House of Commons on an improved …

Ten children kidnapped in Tanzania have been found dead with their body parts mutilated, authorities told CNN on Monday. Tanzania’s deputy health minister Faustine Ndugulile said all 10 children had been missing since December in Njombe district, southwest Tanzania. Their bodies were discovered last week after police launched a search …

  A rare and powerful tornado that struck Havana killed three people and left 172 injured, Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel said early Monday. Diaz-Canel, who toured the darkened streets of Havana in the pre-dawn hours visiting emergency crews, wrote on Twitter that damage to the Cuban capital from the late …

Three Iraqi people were killed and 11 others wounded when two explosive charges went off early morning Sunday in the central province of Salahuddin, the Ministry of Health announced. “The death toll from the two bomb blasts in al-Shirqat district in Salahuddin rose to three, while 11 others were wounded,” …

Leader of the Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah has openly mocked Israel’s claims that it had discovered secret tunnels used by the group on the border between Lebanon and the occupied Palestinian territories, saying Israel was deeply wrong to think that the closure of tunnels would save it from future attacks …

  The Iraqi Foreign Ministry says it will summon the Turkish ambassador to Baghdad over the death of an Iraqi Kurd by Turkish fire in Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan region. On Saturday, a crowd attacked a Turkish military camp in the Shiladzeh area of Iraqi Kurdistan’s Duhok Province to apparently protest …

  Novak Djokovic won a record seventh Australian Open title and a third successive Grand Slam as he swept aside Rafael Nadal in Melbourne. The Serb, rarely troubled on his serve, won 6-3 6-2 6-3 for his biggest victory in a major final over his great rival. Spanish second seed …

The Syrian government has strongly dismissed recent remarks by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan concerning a 1998 agreement between Ankara and Damascus, saying Turkey has been breaching the pact by supporting “terrorism” and occupying Syrian territory since 2011. Syria confirms that it is in compliance with the Adana Interstate Agreement …

Lamia Al-Gailani Werr, who as one of Iraq’s first female archaeologists helped her country’s national museum recover from the looting of its antiquities at the outset of the Iraq war, died on Jan. 18 in Amman, Jordan. She was 80. Her daughter Noorah Al-Gailani said the cause was a stroke. …

Israeli forces have shot dead a Palestinian man in East Jerusalem al-Quds; the third fatality in the occupied territories since Friday. Another Palestinian was also wounded in the attack as Israeli forces targeted the victim’s vehicle, the Palestinian news and information agency Wafa reported. It said they had “opened fire …

The United States is reportedly planning to keep some of its forces in a military base in southeastern Syria despite a total withdrawal ordered by US President Donald Trump. Informed sources told Washington-based Foreign Policy magazine on Friday that given the strategic importance of the al-Tanf garrison, situated in Syria’s …

A mob of angry civilians has attacked a Turkish military camp near the Iraqi city of Dohuk, burning equipment, and vehicles. The incident comes in response to the deaths of civilians during Turkish airstrikes, local media reports. The incident occurred in northern Iraq on Saturday, when a large mob of …