Middle East

Israeli Ex-Security Chiefs Urge Trump to Help end Gaza War

This is Beirut 2025-08-04 10:40 - Reading : 2 minute(s)

Nawaf Salam Donald Trump Palestine Benjamin Netanyahu Hamas

Hundreds of retired Israeli security officials including former heads of intelligence agencies have urged US President Donald Trump to pressure their own government to end the war in Gaza. "It is our professional judgment that Hamas no longer poses a strategic threat to Israel," the former officials wrote in an open letter shared with the media ...

76 Dead, Dozens Missing After Migrant Boat Sinks off Yemen

This is Beirut 2025-08-04 10:25 - Reading : 2 minute(s)

Gulf Saudi Arabia United Arab Emirates Yemen

At least 76 people have been killed and dozens are missing after a boat carrying mostly Ethiopian migrants sank off Yemen, in the latest tragedy on the perilous sea route, officials told AFP on Monday. Yemeni security officials said 76 bodies had been recovered and 32 people rescued from the shipwreck in the Gulf of Aden. The UN's migration ...

AnalysisAI Search Pushing an Already Weakened Media Ecosystem to the Brink

This is Beirut 2025-08-04 09:40 - Reading : 4 minute(s)

CHATGPT AI GEO Search

Generative artificial intelligence assistants like ChatGPT are cutting into traditional online search traffic, depriving news sites of visitors and impacting the advertising revenue they desperately need, in a crushing blow to an industry already fighting for survival. "The next three or four years will be incredibly challenging for publishers ...

Security Council to Meet on Gaza Hostages: Israeli Ambassador

This is Beirut 2025-08-04 09:30 - Reading : 2 minute(s)

UN Security Council Benjamin Netanyahu United Nations Hamas

The UN Security Council will hold an emergency session on the hostages in Gaza, Israel's ambassador said Sunday, as outrage built over their fate in the war-torn enclave, where experts say a famine is unfolding. Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar on Monday said he wants the issue of hostages held in Gaza at the "front and center" ...

Bolsonaro Backers Rally to Praise Trump for Brazil Pressure

This is Beirut 2025-08-04 09:20 - Reading : 2 minute(s)

Donald Trump Washington Brazil Jair Bolsonaro

Thousands of fervent supporters of Brazilian ex-president Jair Bolsonaro took to the streets Sunday, showing support for US President Donald Trump's pressure campaign against the trial of his right-wing ally. Bolsonaro is currently being tried in the capital Brasilia for plotting a coup after failing to win reelection in 2022 against leftist Luiz ...

AnalysisLebanon, the Unraveling Republic

Charles Chartouni 2025-08-04 09:00 - Reading : 5 minute(s)

Nawaf Salam Lebanon Hezbollah Iran United States

American political scientists in the sixties were quite pessimistic when analyzing the cascading political crises befalling Lebanon since the late fifties. Leila Meo used the label of “improbable nation” (1963), and Michael Hudson characterized it as a “precarious republic" (1965). This sense of instability prompted numerous scholars to ...

Israeli Hostage Videos: Standoff Between Netanyahu and Hamas

This is Beirut 2025-08-03 22:25 - Reading : 5 minute(s)

Nawaf Salam Benjamin Netanyahu Hamas Palestine European Union

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu requested the help of the International Committee of the Red Cross on Sunday to aid hostages in Gaza, as outrage built at videos showing two of them emaciated. The premier's office said he spoke to the ICRC coordinator for the region, Julien Lerisson, and "requested his involvement in providing ...

Iran Sets up New Defense Council After War With Israel

This is Beirut 2025-08-03 21:45 - Reading : 1 minute(s)

Nawaf Salam UN Security Council United States

Iran's top security body has approved the creation of a new defence council, state media reported on Sunday, more than a month after a ceasefire ended a 12-day war with Israel. "The Supreme National Security Council approved the establishment of the National Defence Council," state television said. The new body -- which will be ...

Renewed Sectarian Clashes in South Syria Kill Four

This is Beirut 2025-08-03 17:41 - Reading : 3 minute(s)

Syria Sweida SOHR

Renewed sectarian clashes in southern Syria's Druze-majority Sweida province killed at least four people on Sunday, a war monitor said, in the first deadly incident since a ceasefire last month. The province witnessed deadly clashes between Druze fighters and Sunni Bedouins in July that drew the intervention of government forces and tribal ...

Eight OPEC+ Countries Raise Production by 547,000 Bpd

This is Beirut 2025-08-03 17:20 - Reading : 3 minute(s)

OPEC+ Oil & Gas

Saudi Arabia, Russia and six key members of the OPEC+ alliance said Sunday they will increase production by 547,000 barrels a day in a move that analysts say aims to regain market share amid resilient crude prices. Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Kazakhstan, Algeria and Oman, along with the Saudis and Russians, together nicknamed the ...

Israel Says Ground Troops Conducted Raids in Syria

This is Beirut 2025-08-03 14:00 - Reading : 2 minute(s)

Nawaf Salam Syria

Israel's military said Sunday ground troops had operated in southern Syria, seizing weapons and questioning individuals suspected of arms trafficking, in the latest cross-border raid since the fall of Bashar al-Assad in December. A military statement said that troops had completed overnight "a mission involving on-site questioning of several ...

Ukrainian Drones Spark Fire at Sochi Oil Depot

This is Beirut 2025-08-03 12:45 - Reading : 2 minute(s)

Ukraine Russia Sochi Drone Attack

An overnight Ukrainian drone attack sparked a fire at an oil depot in Sochi, the Russian resort that hosted the 2014 Winter Olympic Games, around 400 kilometers (250 miles) from the Ukrainian border, authorities said Sunday. Ukraine has regularly hit Russian oil and gas infrastructure in response to attacks on its own territory since Russia began ...