Tag Archives: Middle East

Qatar has made wearing a face mask compulsory for everyone who steps outside their home, with violators facing jail time and fines of up to $55,000. The move comes as the number of reported novel coronavirus cases in the Gulf country jumped by another 1,733 on Thursday. Cabinet mandated the …

Coastguards of southern Hormuzgan province have seized four trawlers and arrested eight foreign nationals on board at Bandar Abbas territorial waters in the Persian Gulf, provincial Judiciary official Ali Salehi said on Thursday. Ali Salehi said that the vessels were involved in illegal fishing. Salehi said the arrested people have …

Turkey accused the United Arab Emirates of bringing chaos to the Middle East through its interventions in Libya and Yemen, allegations that are likely to inflame tensions between the regional rivals, Reuters reported. Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu was responding to criticism of Turkey’s role in the Libyan conflict, where it …

Lebanon’s government has ordered a full shutdown of the country for four days amid an increase in new cases of infection with the new coronavirus. “The lockdown is set to begin at 7 p.m. local time (1600 GMT) on Wednesday and will end at 5 a.m. on Monday, with the …

France is urging its European Union partners to consider threatening Israel with a tough response if it goes ahead with a de facto annexation of parts of the occupied West Bank, three EU diplomats said. Belgium, Ireland, and Luxembourg also want to discuss the possibility of punitive economic measures during …

Saudi authorities have detained Prince Faisal, the son of late King Abdullah, and are holding him incommunicado, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Saturday. HRW, citing a source close to the royal family, said security forces arrested Prince Faisal bin Abdullah from a family compound northeast of Riyadh on March …

A Saudi tribe has been hit by bloody forced eviction measures employed to make way for the construction of the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS)’s visionary utopian city. The so-called smart city known as NEOM is planned to be constructed in the Tabuk region of northwestern Saudi Arabia on …

Iran’s Health Ministry says the coronavirus pandemic has claimed the lives of 55 people in the country over the past 24 hours with the death toll standing at 6,541, the lowest daily increase since the outbreak of the disease over 11 weeks ago. Kianoush Jahanpour, the head of the public …

Kuwait will enact a “total curfew” from 4 pm (1300 GMT) on Sunday through to May 30 to help to curb the spread of the new coronavirus, the Information Ministry said on Twitter on Friday. Further details of the curfew will be announced soon, it said. Kuwait on April 20 …

Members of the Daesh terrorist group have killed 11 Syrian government soldiers and their allied fighters, a monitor says. The so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Thursday that the government and pro-government forces were killed when their vehicle came under an attack by Daesh terrorists between al-Sokhna and …

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has warned the United States that Iran will not accept any violation of the UN Security Council resolution that mandates the lifting of an arms embargo against the Islamic Republic, saying the country is absolutely entitled to the ban’s cancellation. “The United States and other countries …

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has lashed out at the United States for intensifying its illegal sanctions against the Iranian nation at a time when the country is fighting a deadly coronavirus outbreak, saying Washington should first lift the bans to prove its sincerity in offering help to the Islamic Republic …

A number of terrorists have been killed as forces with Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) carried out a security operation in the western province of Kordestan, which borders Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan region. A statement by the IRGC’s Hamzeh Seyed al-Shohada Base said several “counter-revolutionary’ terrorists were killed during clashes …

If rumors about a coup in Qatar this week turn out to be true, who could benefit from it and what would the possible consequences for the region be? Social media users may have seen recent footage of an alleged attempted coup d’etat in Qatar – footage rife with shooting …

Lebanon has summoned the German ambassador to protest Berlin’s recent decision to blacklist the Hezbollah resistance movement, a highly popular political and defense force in the Arab country. Berlin on Thursday designated Hezbollah as a “terrorist organization,” banned all its activities in the European country and ordered raids on sites …

The Iranian parliament has approved plans for launching five new free trade zones (FTZ) in north and east of the country. The parliament on Monday allowed the government to prepare the required conditions for developing two major FTZs in Sarakhs and Dogharoun, areas on the border with Afghanistan. Dogharoun, the …

Hezbollah’s leader hailed the Lebanese government’s crisis plan as an “important step” on Monday and warned the country should not blindly surrender in talks with the IMF to terms it can not bear. Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah called on the Lebanese to give the cabinet a chance as it tries to …

At least nine Syrian policemen have been killed after a group of unidentified armed men launched an attack on a government building in the southwestern province of Dara’a. The Syrian Interior Ministry, in a statement carried by the official SANA news agency, said the Dara’a Police Command personnel were killed …

Turkey has become a primary destination for plastic waste from richer European countries after the garbage was rejected by China and India. An environmental and health crisis is now in the making in Turkey, locals say. In 2018, China banned the import of plastic waste, citing the environmental damage the …

The Iranian Parliament on Monday voted for the details of a government monetary reform bill which will change the country’s currency name and drop four zeros from banknotes. Under the new law, which will come into effect after the final approval of the Guardian Council, the national currency unit will …