This is Beirut 2024-12-17 11:25 - Reading : 1 minute(s)
Malls and shopping centres in Iran's capital will limit opening hours starting Tuesday, closing two hours earlier to tackle severe energy shortages, local media said. The fuel crisis has already led to frequent power cuts in Tehran in recent weeks and nationwide closures of schools and businesses. The Tehran Chamber of Trade Unions and Guilds ...
This is Beirut 2024-12-17 09:20 - Reading : 1 minute(s)
The killing of a senior Russian military official, Igor Kirillov, in Moscow on Tuesday was a "special operation" by Ukraine's SBU security service, a source inside the agency told AFP. Kirillov is the most senior Russian army official to be targeted on Russian territory, killed with his assistant when an explosive device attached to ...
This is Beirut 2024-12-17 09:10 - Reading : 5 minute(s)
Damascus European Union Turkey United Nations USA Syria
Syria's rebel factions will be "disbanded," the head of the group that led the ouster of Bashar al-Assad has pledged, as the former president denounced the country's new rulers as "terrorists". Assad fled Syria on December 8, as rebels led by Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) captured the capital Damascus, ...
This is Beirut 2024-12-17 01:35 - Reading : 4 minute(s)
A 15-year-old female student was identified by police as the assailant who opened fire Monday at a school in the US state of Wisconsin, where a fellow student and teacher were killed and the suspected shooter was found dead. Shon Barnes, police chief in the state capital Madison, told a press briefing that three people had died and seven others ...
This is Beirut 2024-12-16 21:45 - Reading : 2 minute(s)
Saydnaya Prison Syria Turkey AFAD
A large team of Turkish rescuers began searching Syria's infamous Saydnaya prison near Damascus Monday, trying to check for any hidden underground cells, its director said. Located just north of the Syrian capital, the prison has become a symbol of the rights abuses of the Assad clan, especially since the Syrian civil war erupted in ...
This is Beirut 2024-12-16 21:40 - Reading : 1 minute(s)
United Kingdom Syria Hayat Tahrir al-Sham David Lammy
British Foreign Secretary David Lammy said on Monday that the UK has sent senior officials to meet with Syria's new leadership. It follows the fall earlier this month of the Assad regime to Islamist-led rebels, including Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which has its roots in Al-Qaeda. HTS has renounced jihadism but remains proscribed as a terrorist ...
This is Beirut 2024-12-16 21:05 - Reading : 2 minute(s)
Israel Katz Israel Gaza Hostages Gaza Hamas
Israeli negotiators have "not been this close to an agreement" for the release of hostages in Gaza since the November 2023 truce in the war between Israel and Hamas, Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Monday. "We have not been this close to an agreement on the hostages since the previous deal," Katz told members of the Israeli parliament's ...
This is Beirut 2024-12-16 20:40 - Reading : 2 minute(s)
Two Palestinian officials told AFP on Monday that Israel, via Russian mediators, was seeking to locate in Syria the remains of famous Israeli spy Eli Cohen and missing soldiers. Israel for years has been trying to find and repatriate the body of Cohen, and in 2021 a war monitor said Russian forces had been searching the Yarmuk Palestinian refugee ...
This is Beirut 2024-12-16 19:35 - Reading : 3 minute(s)
Syria Bashar al-Assad Syrian army
When Syria's new government put out a call on social media for soldiers and police to lay down their arms and register with the authorities, Kamal Merhej was happy to oblige. "I don't like the army, I want to get back on track with my life without anyone to give me orders," the 28-year-old told AFP. He spent nine years in the army, posted to the ...
This is Beirut 2024-12-16 18:30 - Reading : 2 minute(s)
Several power plants in Iran have been shut down due to a fuel shortage exacerbated by a cold wave straining energy supply, local media reported on Monday. Iran, a major energy producer, holds the world's second-largest natural gas reserves, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), and ranked as the seventh-largest crude ...
This is Beirut 2024-12-16 18:10 - Reading : 3 minute(s)
Europe Germany Olaf Scholz elections
Germany's centre-left Chancellor Olaf Scholz lost a confidence vote on Monday after weeks of turmoil, setting Europe's biggest economy on the path to early elections on February 23. The Bundestag vote, which Scholz had expected to lose, allows President Frank-Walter Steinmeier to dissolve the legislature and formally order an election. The ...
This is Beirut 2024-12-16 17:55 - Reading : 4 minute(s)
The drive winds between manicured lavender-lined lawns to a crescent-shaped home with a gleaming swimming pool on the Syrian coast: Bashar al-Assad's holiday hideaway disgusts those who now come here. "To think that he spent all that money and we lived in misery," spat Mudar Ghanem, 26. He is grey-skinned and his eyes are sunken after spending ...