This is Beirut 2024-12-29 17:20 - Reading : less than a minute
AFP photographer Sameer al-Doumy returns home after fleeing Syria in 2017, just one year before a horrific chemical weapons attack in April 2018 on his hometown of Douma, a rebel stronghold near Damascus. The 26-year-old award-winning photographer, who has spent the last few years covering the migrant crisis for AFP's Lille bureau in northern ...
This is Beirut 2024-12-29 16:40 - Reading : 1 minute(s)
Saudi Arabia Syria HTS Jolani elections
The new leader of Syria, Ahmad al-Sharaa, also known as Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, announced in an exclusive interview with Al-Arabiya on Sunday that organizing elections in Syria could take up to four years, as it would require a complete population census. He also stated that drafting a new constitution could take three years. Rejecting criticism ...
This is Beirut 2024-12-29 15:30 - Reading : 3 minute(s)
Vladimir Putin Russia crash plane Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev on Sunday demanded that Russia admit that it fired at an Azerbaijan Airlines passenger jet before it crashed, accusing Moscow of initially trying to cover up the cause of the fatal disaster. Aliyev made the accusation in an interview to state media at Baku airport four days after the AZAL Embraer 190 plane ...
This is Beirut 2024-12-29 15:16 - Reading : 4 minute(s)
A Jeju Air plane carrying 181 people from Thailand to South Korea crashed on arrival Sunday, smashing into a barrier and bursting into flames, leaving all but two feared dead. A bird strike was cited by authorities as the likely cause of the crash, the worst ever aviation disaster on South Korean soil, which flung passengers out of the plane and ...
This is Beirut 2024-12-29 12:50 - Reading : 2 minute(s)
Syria's new authorities have arrested nearly 300 people, including informants, pro-regime fighters and former soldiers, in a crackdown on loyalists to ousted former president Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) war monitor said Sunday. Since rebels led by the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group toppled Assad ...
This is Beirut 2024-12-29 12:45 - Reading : 3 minute(s)
Fatah Hamas Israel West Bank Jenin
A Palestinian woman was shot dead overnight at the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, with her family on Sunday accusing the Palestinian Authority's security forces of killing her. Shatha al-Sabbagh, a journalism student in her early 20s, was killed by a bullet to the head, which her family said was fired by a security forces sniper ...
This is Beirut 2024-12-29 11:00 - Reading : 1 minute(s)
Jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan told a rare visiting delegation from Turkey's pro-Kurdish party that bolstering Turkish-Kurdish ties is vital and that he is ready to contribute to the process. "Re-strengthening the Turkish-Kurdish brotherhood is not only a historical responsibility but also... an urgency for all peoples," Ocalan said according ...
This is Beirut 2024-12-29 11:00 - Reading : 3 minute(s)
European Union Ukraine United States Georgia Russia
Georgia inaugurated a ruling party loyalist as president in the midst of a political showdown on Sunday, moments after Tbilisi's outgoing pro-EU leader declared herself the "only legitimate president". The inauguration of former footballer Mikhail Kavelashvili is set to further escalate a months-long political crisis that has seen huge ...
This is Beirut 2024-12-29 09:50 - Reading : 3 minute(s)
Donald Trump New York Republicans USA
Donald Trump weighed in Saturday in a bitter debate dividing his traditional supporters and tech barons like Elon Musk, saying that he backs a special visa program that helps highly skilled workers enter the country. "I've always liked the (H1-B) visas, I have always been in favor of the visas, that's why we have them" at Trump-owned facilities, ...
This is Beirut 2024-12-29 01:45 - Reading : 3 minute(s)
Hamas Israel Benjamin Netanyahu Palestine USA
Israel said on Saturday that it had arrested the director of a hospital in the north of the Gaza Strip that had been presented as a Palestinian Hamas command centre and was now empty of patients and staff, according to the World Health Organisation, which said it was ‘appalled’. The Kamal Adwan hospital was the last major hospital ...
This is Beirut 2024-12-28 21:50 - Reading : less than a minute
A "terrorist attack" killed a police commander on Saturday in Bandar-e Lengeh, a coastal city in Iran's southern province of Hormozgan, local media reported. Tasnim news agency said the commander "was targeted" in the deadly attack. "The attacker was also killed," Tasnim said. No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, a rarity ...
This is Beirut 2024-12-28 21:40 - Reading : 1 minute(s)
Hamas Israel Palestine Qatar ceasefire
Qatar's prime minister met a Hamas delegation in Doha on Saturday to discuss a "clear and comprehensive" ceasefire deal to end the war in Gaza, a statement said. Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al-Thani held talks with a Hamas team led by senior official Khalil al-Hayya, the foreign ministry statement said. It is unusual for Sheikh ...