Heavy fighting between government forces and rebels in north and west Yemen has left 51 dead, as a new peace efforts appeared to stumble, military officials said yesterday.

As Saudi Arabia seeks to diversify its oil-dependent economy, the chief of a Red Sea “megacity” says his project is pointing the way forward.

Kurdish Peshmerga forces "will not retreat from areas retaken" from Islamic State militants in Iraq, Kurdistan President Massoud Barzani said on Wednesday, according to local Rudaw TV station.

Air strikes battered neighbourhoods around a children's hospital and a blood bank in rebel-held eastern Aleppo on Wednesday in a second day of renewed bombing that has killed at least 32 people, a war monitor, medics and emergency workers said.

Saudi Arabia's commerce minister said Wednesday that the kingdom is seeking reciprocal treatment on visas, after critics said the introduction of higher fees risked deterring investment.

Syrian and Russian warplanes bombed rebel-held areas in Aleppo and Idlib province overnight, a monitor said, a day after Moscow announced a fresh offensive against opponents of its Damascus ally.

Iraqi forces have retaken the ancient city of Nimrud, but it has been heavily damaged by the Islamic State group, an AFP journalist who visited the site yesterday said.

Russia launched co-ordinated missile strikes against rebels in Syria yesterday and Moscow for the first time used its only aircraft carrier in combat, Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said.

An Egyptian appeals court yesterday overturned a death sentence handed down against ousted Islamist president Mohamed Mursi in one of four trials since his 2013 overthrow.

US Secretary of State John Kerry said yesterday that Yemen’s Houthi group and the Saudi-led coalition fighting it had agreed to a ceasefire from tomorrow, as Washington presses for an end to the war before President Barack Obama leaves office.

Organisation of Islamic Co-operation (OIC) strongly condemned a bill by the Israeli occupation government aimed at legitimising colonial settlement areas in the occupied ...

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said yesterday action on climate change has become “unstoppable” and predicted that US President-elect Donald Trump would drop plans to quit a global accord aimed at weaning the world off fossil fuels.