Saudi Arabia has announced that this year’s hajj pilgrimage will be limited to 60,000 vaccinated people from within the kingdom because of the coronavirus pandemic. The kingdom ran a reduced pilgrimage last year, but still allowed a small number of people to
Israeli police have blocked a planned march by Jewish nationalists through Palestinian neighbourhoods of Jerusalem after a similar parade last month played a key role in building the tensions that led to the latest Gaza conflict. In a statement, police said a permit for
Iran and the UN’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), have overcome their differences to seal a one-month “stop-gap” extension of limited UN inspections of Iran’s nuclear activities. The agreement, lasting until 24 June, comes despite the speaker of the
Israel and Palestinian militants halted their fire for several hours early on Thursday amid efforts to reach a truce, although intense rocket fire and further airstrikes throughout the day dashed hopes of an imminent ceasefire. It was not immediately clear if the
Israeli police have stormed the sacred Jerusalem compound that holds the Dome of the Rock amid mounting international concern over the worsening violence in the city. Following the most serious clashes in the city since 2017, the Palestine Red Crescent reported 305
A senior diplomat at the Swiss embassy in Tehran has been found dead after falling from a high-rise building where she lived in the north of the city, a spokesman for emergency services was quoted as saying by Iranian news agencies. The
Iraq’s interior ministry has said 82 people died and 110 were injured in a catastrophic fire that broke out in the intensive care unit of a Baghdad hospital tending to severely ill coronavirus patients. Negligence on the part of hospital authorities has
Recent secret talks reportedly held between Iran and Saudi Arabia focused on the war in Yemen, and ways to end a conflict that is one of the most dire humanitarian disasters in the world and poses a lingering security threat to the Saudi kingdom. An unnamed Iranian
France, Germany and the UK have warned that Iran took a dangerous step towards the production of a nuclear weapon by enriching uranium to levels for which there is no “credible civilian need”. Tehran, which claims its nuclear ambitions are limited to creating energy, announced
Jordan’s king has claimed authorities foiled an act of sedition with the weekend arrests of a former crown prince and 17 other people, describing the events as the “most painful” ordeal of his reign. “Nothing can come close to the shock and the pain
