By Mikhail Flores and Karen Lema CEBU, Philippines, Oct 28 (Reuters) - USDefense Secretary Pete Hegseth sought to reassure Southeast Asian counterparts on Wednesday of Washington’s commitment to the Indo-Pacific, pledging that Washington would defend its interests and those of
By Karen Lema MANILA, Oct 28 (Reuters) - US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is likely to face questions about Washington’s commitment to the Indo-Pacific region when he meets Southeast Asian counterparts in the Philippines on Wednesday. As the Iran war strains US military
Several human rights groups on Tuesday urged countries to reject Emirati official Lana Nusseibeh for the UN's top job, over United Arab Emirates' alleged financing of paramilitary forces in Sudan. The 48-year-old Nusseibeh is vying to become the first woman and only the second
Oct 28 (Reuters) - Jordan and Syria have agreed to form a joint security committee to examine the details and repercussions of recent Jordanian airstrikes against Islamic State sites in Syria, the two countries' foreign ministries said in a joint statement early on Wednesday.
An American woman who joined the Islamic State group before being caught by anti-IS forces in Syria was found guilty on Tuesday of receiving military training from the jihadists. Halima Salman, 27, was one of hundreds of foreign women who went or were taken to the territory
Syria and Jordan announced on Tuesday they were determined to maintain good relations, after the Jordanian military conducted deadly strikes on its neighbour in retaliation for a gun attack on a church. The strike sparked the worst crisis between the two countries since the
Syria reopened its main border crossing with Jordan on Wednesday as the two countries reaffirmed ties that were strained by a deadly retaliatory strike by Jordanian forces. Jordan's strike -- a reprisal against a gun attack on a church -- sparked the worst crisis between the
Syria condemned on Tuesday deadly strikes on the country's south a day earlier that Jordan said killed more than 20 jihadists as retaliation for a gun attack on a church. In the worst crisis between the neighbours since the ouster of longtime Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad in
IAEA chief Rafael Grossi urged Iran during a UN Security Council meeting on Tuesday to grant immediate access to his agency so it can verify the Islamic republic's nuclear materials. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has not had access to key nuclear facilities in
The agreement is set to broadly lift tariffs on key products as Canadian officials hope to boost bilateral trade to $7 billion within a decade.
Top US health official Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. singled out the world’s "500 million Arabs," claiming they "don't produce science" or literature in the latest attack on Michigan Senate Democrat candidate Abdul El-Sayed.
Tehran's push for a regional security order independent of Washington could be gaining diplomatic momentum, but the Islamic Republic has competing, if not conflicting, strategic priorities with the countries it hopes to engage.
By Antoni Slodkowski UNITED NATIONS, Oct 27 (Reuters) - Human rights monitors criticized senior UAE diplomat Lana Nusseibeh's candidacy to be the next UN chief on Tuesday, citing her role in championing the country's foreign policy and denying the UAE's role in fuelling the
By Alexander Cornwell JERUSALEM, Oct 27 (Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his far-right coalition partners made a last-ditch push on Tuesday to get their supporters to the polls, warning of surging Arab voter turnout, a tactic Arab politicians denounced
At a polling station in the Israeli settlement of Kiryat Arba, home of far-right firebrand Itamar Ben Gvir in the southern West Bank, voter Lishay Cooper said the country needed a tougher leader than famously hawkish Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. "Netanyahu has made
The Committee to Protect Journalists has ranked Egypt, which has just ordered the closure of Mada Masr, among the world’s top jailers of journalists.
The Committee to Protect Journalists has ranked Egypt, which has just ordered the closure of Mada Masr, among the world’s top jailers of journalists.
DUBAI, Oct 27 (Reuters) - Iran needs to show good intentions for mediation efforts to succeed, mediator Qatar said on Tuesday, after a delegation from the Gulf Arab country visited Tehran earlier this week in an effort to de-escalate regional tensions in coordination with the
HEBRON, West Bank, Oct 27 (Reuters) - Israeli troops fired a stun grenade on Tuesday to disperse Palestinians who gathered to protest against an Israeli military operation that has displaced thousands of residents from a neighbourhood in Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West
Ras Tanura is home to the kingdom’s largest refinery and one of the world’s most important oil export terminals.
By Corina Pons MADRID, Oct 26 (Reuters) - Spain has returned to Morocco more than a dozen sub-Saharan African and Asian migrants who reached the Spanish enclave of Ceuta and were turned down for asylum,the first deportation of its kind from the enclave since a mass border
Jordan said its airstrikes targeted ISIS fighters, while Syria said civilians were killed, sparking outrage.
UK anti-terrorism police said Tuesday two men have been charged with national security offences after an incident last month at a British airbase used by the United States, linking the scare to Iran. The head of National Counter Terrorism Policing, Laurence Taylor, said two
In an ambulance carrying the bodies of relatives killed in a Jordanian strike on southern Syria, a young man sat in shock, having lost much of his family in an instant. "We were asleep when the missile hit us. My mother, my older brother and his three children --two boys and a
DUBAI, Oct 27 (Reuters) - Iran's Persian Gulf Strait Authority, a body set up by Tehran to manage passage requests in the Strait of Hormuz, said on Tuesday all vessels belonging to South Korean shipping company Sinokor would face "legal action" starting on November 1. Tehran
DUBAI, Oct 27 (Reuters) - Iranian Security Council chief Mohsen Rezaei on Tuesday met Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, not seen in public since succeeding his slain father in March, a day after holding talks with representatives of Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan.
The province was hit by a tornado that killed four construction workers and injured another less than two weeks before the city hosts the UN climate summit.
The Netherlands will not participate in next year's Eurovision Song Contest, its public broadcaster NPO said Tuesday, citing "sensitivities" over Israel's participation. The Dutch withdrawal is the latest in a series of boycotts from countries unhappy at Israel's inclusion in
DUBAI, Oct 27 (Reuters) - Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthis said on Tuesday they had launched an attack on Saudi Arabia's Ras Tanura oil refinery, the biggest in the kingdom, located on the Gulf west of the Strait of Hormuz. The group's military spokesperson Yahya Saree said in a
DUBAI, Oct 27 (Reuters) - Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthis said on Tuesday they had hit Saudi Arabia's Ras Tanura oil refinery, the biggest in the kingdom, with a ballistic missile. The Houthis also said they had attacked Saudi military aircraft and repelled an advance by
ATHENS, Oct 27 (Reuters) - Egypt, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates aligned with Greece to denounce a Turkey-Libya maritime accord as a threat to regional security and international legal order in a long-standing dispute over sea borders in the eastern Mediterranean Sea.
Oct 27 (Reuters) - Jordan said on Tuesday its forces had killed more than 20 Islamic State militants in airstrikes on southern Syria the previous evening, following a deadly church attack in Jordan that authorities linked to militants operating across the border. The strikes,
By Raphael Satter WASHINGTON, Oct 27 (Reuters) - Experts at a digital defense firm recently found that an Israeli ad tech company was heavily targeting users ofStarlink's satellite internet service in a likely effort to spy on them, according to six people familiar with the
LONDON, Oct 27 (Reuters) - Two men were charged on Tuesday under Britain's National Security Act following last month's security incident at the RAF Fairford military base, with prosecutors accusing one of them of trying to assist Iranian intelligence operations in Britain. RAF
BAGHDAD, Oct 27 - An Iraqi court on Tuesday sentenced six French nationals to life in prison and a seventh to 15 years after convicting them of membership in Islamic State, a Reuters witness inside the courtroom said. The men were among 47 French Islamic State suspects
BEIJING, Oct 27 (Reuters) - China is highly concerned about conflicts in the Middle East and surrounding regions and Beijing will send an envoy to the relevant countries in the near future,foreign ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakunsaid at a daily press conference on Tuesday. Guo
Gadi Eisenkot, the man who could unseat Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, almost always dresses in black, speaks halting English and tends to respond in interviews with bullet-point lists, a reflection of the military culture that shaped him. For some voters in
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel's consummate political survivor, faces the fight of his life in Tuesday's election as he tries to convince voters he is still the only candidate capable of keeping them safe. The 77-year-old's security-first reputation was all but
Israelis flocked to the polls Tuesday in turnout unseen in decades, with a deeply divided electorate delivering a verdict on veteran right-wing Prime Minister Benj
When Israel goes to the polls on Tuesday, voters will weigh in on military conscription, the economy and how the state should investigate its failure to prevent Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack. AFP looks at the key issues that have shaped the campaign. - Accountability for
Israelis flocked to the polls on Tuesday for the first time since Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack, with a deeply divided electorate delivering their verdict on vete
By Padraic Halpin DUBLIN, Oct 26 (Reuters) - American rapper Macklemore vowed to continue to speak out loudly against Israel's war in Gaza at the opening of his "Free Palestine" concert tour organised after he was dropped as the opening act for Ed Sheeran over pro-Palestinian
The Jordanian military said it had struck "terrorist organisations" in neighbouring Syria on Monday in retaliation for a deadly jihadist attack on a church last week, hours after authorities arrested three men they accused of the killings. It said air force jets had "destroyed
By Steven Scheer and Pesha Magid JERUSALEM, Oct 27 (Reuters) - Israelis surged to the polls at the fastest rate in 45 years on Tuesday, passing wartime judgment on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in what voters described as the most consequential election in their history. In
By Steven Scheer and Pesha Magid JERUSALEM, Oct 27 (Reuters) - Israelis surged to the polls at the fastest rate in nearly half a century on Tuesday to pass wartime judgment on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in what voters described as the most consequential election in the
By Maayan Lubell JERUSALEM, Oct 27 (Reuters) - Israel holds a parliamentary election on Tuesday, its first since the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023 that shook the country and plunged the Middle East into turmoil. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's hold on power is at stake,