This is Beirut 01/01 10:05 - Reading : 3 minute(s)
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky on Tuesday vowed that his country would use 2025 to fight for an end to Russia's nearly three-year-long invasion by any means necessary. The Ukrainian leader's address caps a difficult year for the war-battered country, which has been fending off a better-resourced Russian army for nearly three years. "May ...
This is Beirut 01/01 09:35 - Reading : 2 minute(s)
Africa France Senegal Ivory Coast
The reorganization of France's military presence in Africa continues, marking a new era in relations between several African countries and the erstwhile colonial power. Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara announced on Tuesday evening that the French military base in Abidjan, home to the 43rd BIMA (marine infantry battalion) in Port-Bouet, ...
This is Beirut 2024-12-31 21:20 - Reading : 2 minute(s)
Ahmed al-Sharaa Syria Syrian Democratic Forces
Syria's de facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa met with senior Christian clerics on Tuesday, amid calls on the Islamist chief to guarantee minority rights after seizing power earlier this month. "The leader of the new Syrian administration, Ahmed al-Sharaa, meets a delegation from the Christian community in Damascus," Syria's General Command said in a ...
This is Beirut 2024-12-31 18:09 - Reading : 4 minute(s)
Crowds will marvel at fireworks and toast champagne to greet 2025 on Tuesday, waving goodbye to a year that brought Olympic glory, a dramatic Donald Trump return and turmoil in the Middle East and Ukraine. It is all but certain that 2024 will go down as the hottest year on record, with climate-fuelled disasters wreaking havoc from the plains of ...
This is Beirut 2024-12-31 17:50 - Reading : 2 minute(s)
United States Iran IRGC Russia US Sanctions
The United States unveiled sanctions Tuesday against Iranian and Russian organizations, alleging they had sought to interfere in the US election. The groups targeted are the Cognitive Design Production Center, a subordinate organization of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and the Moscow-based Center for Geopolitical ...
This is Beirut 2024-12-31 16:55 - Reading : 1 minute(s)
United States US CENTCOM Yemen Houthi Movement
The US military said Tuesday its forces had hit Houthi targets in Yemen's capital that the Iran-backed rebels used to attack American warships and commercial vessels. The attacks began Monday and were carried out by US Navy ships and aircraft that also struck Houthi-controlled coastal regions of Yemen, the US Central Command (CENTCOM) said. It ...
This is Beirut 2024-12-31 15:55 - Reading : less than a minute
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attended a session in parliament on Tuesday after being discharged from hospital where he had undergone a prostate removal surgery over the weekend. The surgery took place on Sunday, with Israel still at war against Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip nearly 15 months since their unprecedented October 7, ...
This is Beirut 2024-12-31 14:40 - Reading : 1 minute(s)
Russian forces advanced by 3,985 square kilometres (1,539 square miles) in Ukraine in 2024, seven times more than in 2023, according to an AFP analysis of data from the US-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW). Much of the Russian gains came in the autumn, as they took 610 square kilometres in October and 725 square kilometres in November. ...
This is Beirut 2024-12-31 14:00 - Reading : 2 minute(s)
French aircraft have bombed Islamic State positions in Syria, Defense Minister Sebastien Lecornu said Tuesday, in its first such strike on the country's soil since the fall of Bashar al-Assad. "Our armed forces remain engaged in battling terrorism in the Levant," Lecornu wrote on X while on a New Year visit to French UN peacekeepers in ...
This is Beirut 2024-12-31 13:45 - Reading : 2 minute(s)
A United Nations report published Tuesday found that Israeli strikes on and near hospitals in the Gaza Strip had left healthcare in the Palestinian territory on the verge of collapse. The report by the UN human rights office said such strikes raised grave concerns about Israel's compliance with international law. "Israel's pattern of deadly ...
This is Beirut 2024-12-31 13:20 - Reading : 1 minute(s)
The military chief of the radical Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) has been appointed Minister of Defense in Syria’s transitional government, authorities announced on Tuesday. "The general command announces the appointment of General Mourhaf Abou Qasra as Minister of Defense in the new government of the Syrian Arab Republic," led by ...
This is Beirut 2024-12-31 12:50 - Reading : 2 minute(s)
Israel Damascus Tehran United Nations
Iran's security chief Ali Akbar Ahmadian said a new group would emerge in Syria to fight Israel following the fall of president Bashar al-Assad, state media reported. "With the occupation of Syrian territories by the Zionist regime, a new resistance has been born that will manifest itself in the years to come," said Ahmadian, the secretary of ...