International

Israel’s government has approved the new Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal with Hamas, paving the way for it to take effect on Sunday. The decision came after hours of discussions that continued late into the night. Two far-right ministers voted against the deal. The security cabinet earlier recommended ratifying the agreement, saying it “supports the achievement of the objectives ...

Tens of thousands of people forced from their homes by enormous fires raking Los Angeles will not be able to return for at least four days, officials said Sunday. Frustrated evacuees have formed lines at checkpoints hoping to get into evacuation zones created for the Palisades Fire and the Eaton Fire, whose massive blazes razed whole neighborhoods. Many are desperate ...

Top diplomats from the Middle East and Europe arrived in the Saudi capital on Sunday to discuss Syria, as world powers push for stability after the fall of Bashar al-Assad. Saudi Arabia, the Middle East’s biggest economy, is seeking to increase its influence in Syria after Islamist-led rebels toppled Assad last month, analysts say. The talks will include a meeting ...

Outgoing Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party said late on Thursday it will choose a new leader on March 9 ahead of the 2025 elections for which polls show the party in a very weak position. The prime minister announced on Monday that he will step down in the coming months after nine years in power, bowing to pressure ...

Saudi Arabia is currently grappling with torrential rains and unprecedented flooding that have submerged streets and neighborhoods across multiple cities in the kingdom, according to various media reports. This weather phenomenon, triggered by an atmospheric depression, is expected to persist in the coming days. On Tuesday, the National Meteorology Center issued alerts at various levels throughout the kingdom, including a ...

Iran on Wednesday rejected as “baseless” French President Emmanuel Macron’s remarks claiming Tehran was the main strategic and security challenge in the Middle East. Foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei described the comments as “baseless, contradictory, and speculative,” and called for France “to reconsider its non-constructive approaches to peace and stability” in the region.

At least 95 people have been confirmed dead and 130 are injured after a major earthquake struck the mountainous Tibet region on Tuesday morning, Chinese state media say. The earthquake that hit Tibet’s holy Shigatse city around 09:00 local time (01:00 GMT) had a magnitude of 7.1 and a depth of 10 kilometres (six miles), according to data from the ...

Syria’s new foreign minister Asaad al-Shaibani landed in the United Arab Emirates Monday on his first visit to the country since rebels toppled president Bashar al-Assad last month, official news agency SANA said, reports AFP. “Shaibani, accompanied by defense minister Murhaf Abu Qasra and intelligence chief Anas Khattab arrive in the United Arab Emirates,” SANA said, a day after they ...

At least eight people were killed and 15 others were wounded after a fire broke out at a vegetable market in China’s northern province of Hebei, state television CCTV said on Saturday. Authorities were investigating the cause of the fire in the city of Zhangjiakou, which was doused just over an hour after it broke out at about 8:40AM, the ...

Former Estonian president Arnold Ruutel, seen as one of the fathers of the country’s return to independence in 1991, has died at the age of 96, the president’s office said overnight. Ruutel was a communist party official at the end of the 1980s just as the Soviet Union was beginning to unravel, before becoming a protagonist in the Baltic country’s ...