Washington, Aug. 7 (SANA) The World Bank announced on Friday that its Board of Executive Directors approved a $100 million grant from the International Development Association (IDA) to support Syria in building a modern, secure, and digitally enabled financial sector. According to the official stat»»»

The refusal by the US and Europe to provide Ukraine with more Patriot missiles points to depleted stockpiles and sluggish interceptor production, military expert and Arsenal of the Fatherland columnist Alexander Sinyugin tells Sputnik. The earlier plan for European countries to buy Patriot missiles»»»

President Donald Trump speaks to the press about the new East Wing next to the construction site at the White House on May 19. An appeals court has ruled that the project to build a ballroom at the site needs congressional approval. File Photo by Samuel Corum/UPI | License Photo Aug. 7 (UPI) -- A f»»»

JERUSALEM: The number of Palestinian children held by Israel without charge or trial has nearly doubled in just over a year, according to prison data obtained by the Israeli human rights organization Parents Against Child Detention. Dozens have been detained for more than 12 months. The figures rev»»»

BELGRADE: Feliks, a rare eastern imperial eagle, is again soaring through the skies of his Serbian homeland after being rescued from the clutches of bird smugglers during his inaugural migration, the national bird society said Friday. Serbia’s Bird Protection and Study Society, which helped return »»»

BELGRADE - A Serbian Air Force Mi-17 helicopter joined firefighting efforts in the Deliblato Sands, northern Serbia, on Friday morning after Serbian Armed Forces personnel were deployed on the ground on Thursday night, the MoD said in a statement. It said the Serbian Armed Forces had joined the eff»»»

BELGRADE - Serbia's Emergency Response Team reviewed on Friday the current hydrological and meteorological situation, as well as the latest information on wildfires in Serbia, at a session also attended by PM Djuro Macut, and adopted additional measures to prevent the consequences of adverse weathe»»»

On Polymarket, you can bet on almost anything – and its opposite. Now you can place your money on who will become Hungary’s next president. The website, which has been blocked in Hungary, has already “predicted” victories for Donald Trump and Péter Magyar. If it gets this one right, it could prove »»»

THE HAGUE: An international police operation led by Spanish authorities dismantled a major criminal network involved in trafficking migrants, drugs and weapons across the Western Mediterranean, the European Union police agency Europol and Spain’s Civil Guard announced Friday. The takedown of the gr»»»

Doha: Minister of State for Foreign Trade Affairs at the Ministry of Commerce and Industry HE Dr. Ahmed bin Mohammed Al Sayed met via video conference with Minister of State for Trade in the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade in the United Kingdom HE Anas Sarwar. The meeting dis»»»

Progressive Democrats are hoping to build momentum after left-wing candidate Abdul El-Sayed narrowly defeated an establishment-backed rival in Michigan’s US Senate primary. The race was seen as a test of the party’s future direction, with El-Sayed campaigning on universal healthcare, campaign finan»»»

Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Turkey signed a mutual defence pact on Friday that would treat any act of aggression on one of the three nations as an attack on all of them, the allies said in a joint statement. However, it did not specify if the agreement would bind them to any particular military acti»»»

The concerts of several musicians accused of supporting former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad have been cancelled this summer in towns across Syria. People in the city of Homs tore down posters announcing performances by singers Mohamad Iskandar and Hossam Jneed, denouncing their previous links w»»»

PRISTINA - The Pristina provisional authorities have declared Telekom Srbija CEO Vladimir Lucic a persona non grata, permanently banning him from entering Kosovo-Metohija, as well as from transiting or staying in the province. According to reports by Pristina-based media outlets, Pristina's interio»»»

BUNIA, Congo: Wiza Bondele goes to work every day at a hospital in Congo with one goal in mind: to slow the fastest-growing Ebola outbreak on record. At an Ebola treatment hospital in the eastern Ituri province, the epicenter of Congo’s ongoing outbreak, Bondele disinfects contaminated areas, check»»»

LONDON: The West Bank’s health system is being pushed toward a collapse comparable to Gaza’s, not by airstrikes but by financial pressure and restrictions on movement, the head of a US-based medical aid group said on Thursday. Dr. Zaher Sahloul, president and CEO of MedGlobal, told Arab News that t»»»

RIYADH: The defense agreement signed on Friday between Saudi Arabia, Turkiye and Pakistan is not an effort to establish a “military axis or a sectarian bloc,” a senior Saudi minister said. “Nor is it linked to any nuclear ambitions or arms race, rather it is focused on building sustainable capabili»»»

DOHA: The Doha International Center for Interfaith Dialogue (DICID) is participating in the 2026 International Conference on Peace Among Followers of Religions, being held in Malacca, Malaysia, as a principal organizing partner. The conference's official proceedings are set to begin on Saturday. Th»»»

Alison Sargent is pleased to welcome Jean-Mathieu Thévenot, farmer in the French Basque Country, a member of the Confédération Paysanne farmers' union in France, and part of the international movement La Via Campesina. According to Thévenot, 2026 marks a turning point where climate disruption has b»»»

Abelardo de la Espriella will take office as Colombia's new president Friday. Photo by Mauricio Dueñas Castañeda/EPA Aug. 7 (UPI) -- Abelardo de la Espriella officially takes office as Colombia's president Friday, beginning a term marked by a sharp shift to the far right following the administratio»»»

DUBAI: Houthi attacks on Yemen’s Marib province killed at least five people Friday, according to a minister and military source, as the rebels escalate strikes on the region a day after their deadliest attack in years. The latest violence has raised the spectre of a return to war in the Arabian Pen»»»

The US-Iran conflict continues to drive regional uncertainty on Friday, with the Strait of Hormuz remaining at the centre of security, shipping and diplomatic developments. UAE residents and businesses are closely monitoring updates that could affect air travel, fuel markets, trade routes and regio»»»

Journalist Don Lemon has told a federal judge that criminal charges against him are the result of an illegal vindictive prosecution by the Trump administration. File Photo by John Angelillo/UPI | License Photo Aug. 7 (UPI) -- Former CNN anchor Don Lemon is seeking to have a federal indictment again»»»

CAIRO: Arab League Secretary-General Nabil Fahmy warned on Friday that Israel’s attempts to impose a new regional reality through military force will fail to deliver security and instead risk expanding conflict and destabilizing the Middle East. Fahmy criticized what he described as an Israeli stra»»»

Doha: The State of Qatar condemned the Houthi attacks on the Najran region in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia that injured several civilians, considering it a severe violation of sovereignty and international law, as well as a dangerous escalation that threatens the region's security and stability. The»»»

Doha: The State of Qatar expressed its condemnation and denunciation of an explosion that targeted a minibus in the city of Jaramana in the Arab Republic of Syria, which led to injuries. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs renewed, in a statement today, the State of Qatar's firm position of rejecting v»»»

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Iran is using the Strait of Hormuz as an ace in its conflict with the United States, Yuri Lyamin, senior researcher at the Centre for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, told Sputnik. "I think, in case of the Strait of Hormuz, the Iranian position rests upon two factors. Fir»»»

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - The United States does not expect the continued conflict in the Middle East to threaten the world with depression, White House National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett said on Friday. "No, if this were to turn into something that was taking out all the oil of the Midd»»»

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - The Russian forces struck two dry cargo ships in the Black Sea that were delivering military equipment to the Ukrainian troops, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Friday. "During the day, land-based precision weapons and attack drones struck two dry cargo ships in the Black Sea»»»

Acting Chief Secretary of the Interior Ministry Lyubomir Nikolov said Bulgarian authorities have found no evidence that fentanyl produced in the recently dismantled laboratory in Sofia was exported abroad, stressing that all identified shipments were intercepted before leaving the country. Speaking»»»

The killing of a 37-year-old man in Plovdiv on August 4 has become one of the most disturbing criminal cases in Bulgaria this year, both for the extreme cruelty described by prosecutors and for the account the accused have given of their own motive. Five teenagers, three boys and two girls aged bet»»»

Wind turbines cover the Tehachapi Mountain Range in Tehachapi, Calif. The Trump administration will pay a German company more than $2 billion to abandon offshore wind farm projects in a deal announced Thursday. File Photo by Terry Schmitt/UPI | License Photo Aug. 7 (UPI) -- The U.S. Department of t»»»

BELGRADE: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will on Saturday make his first official visit to Serbia, one of the few European countries that have maintained friendly relations with Russia despite its invasion of Ukraine. The office of Serbia’s populist President Aleksandar Vucic announced the »»»

MOSCOW: ‌Russia’s state nuclear giant Rosatom, operator of the Northern Sea Route via the Arctic, said on Friday it had issued permits for seven Chinese transit vessels to sail to Europe via the NSR. Chinese container company Sea Legend Shipping ‌plans to launch ‌the first regular ‌container servic»»»

MADRID: Spain on Friday threatened Italy with countermeasures if Rome did not lift this week its suspension of the free-travel Schengen agreement, introduced after the mass migrant rush to Ceuta. “We urge the government of Italy to rectify, put an end to the checks and treat Spaniards like other Eu»»»

RIYADH: Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Secretary-General Jasem Albudaiwi on Friday strongly condemned attacks carried out by the Houthi militia targeting Saudi Arabia’s Najran Region. The Saudi-led Coalition to Restore Legitimacy in Yemen said Friday that 11 civilians were wounded in a Houthi attac»»»

Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister for Legal and International Affairs Kazem Gharibabadi believes that diplomacy needs to continue even during wartime, but the messages, positions, and language of the diplomatic process must be adapted to wartime conditions. In an interview with IRNA, Kazem Gharibabadi»»»

Swiss-Albanian businessman Behgjet Pacolli has warned that his company Mabco Constructions could pursue international arbitration against Albania after the government launched procedures to terminate the concession contract for Vlora International Airport, accusing state institutions of undermining»»»

Artificial intelligence has crossed another scientific milestone by designing entirely new viruses that have never existed in nature, a breakthrough that could accelerate medical research while intensifying concerns about the misuse of the technology. The work, published on Thursday in the journal »»»

Yemen’s Houthi rebels have announced that they launched coordinated drone and ballistic missile attacks on several camps belonging to forces of the Saudi-backed, internationally recognized government on Thursday. The flare-up follows four years of relative calm in the small Arab nation, which has b»»»

Tunis, August 7, 2026 (TAP) – A Tunisian-Indian Business Forum will take place in Tunis on August 20. It will bring together business leaders and institutional stakeholders who will seek to foster trade, investment, and economic cooperation between...»»»

Belgrade: Feliks, a rare eastern imperial eagle, is again soaring through the skies of his Serbian homeland after being rescued from the clutches of bird smugglers during his inaugural migration, the national bird society said Friday. Serbia's Bird Protection and Study Society, which helped return »»»

OSLO: Norway’s ‌government on Friday presented plans to cut red tape and shorten processing of applications to build new onshore wind power plants and transmission lines, amid concerns that a slow buildout in recent years could curb economic activity. The Labour Party government aims to cut in half»»»

DAMASCUS: In Syria’s first post-Assad parliament, women lawmakers stand out more for their diversity than their numbers: a famous actress, a Christian engineer, a Kurdish leader and the widow of a hard-line Islamist commander. Women hold 22 of the 207 current seats in Syria’s parliament, or just ov»»»

Last month, France passed a law authorising assisted dying. Medical advancements and an increasingly ageing population, have resulted in a handful of new laws on assisted dying across the EU, of which the French bill is the latest. France’s National Assembly approved the measure on 15 July, by a 29»»»

1 of 2 | Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, walks to a procedural vote in January at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. Murkowski said Friday that she will vote against the nomination of Todd Blanche, President Donald Trump's pick as U.S. attorney general. File Photo by Bonnie Cash/UPI | License Phot»»»

DALIAN, China: Thousands of holidaymakers flocked to the sea in northeast China to cool down, only to find it was even hotter than back home as a heatwave bakes the region. Along the pebble beach of Fujiazhuang Park in Dalian, a city famed for its fresh seafood and Yellow Sea coastal sights, beachg»»»

MOSCOW: Russian online ‌retailer Wildberries said on Friday it was seeking partners to open new storage hubs, after three weeks of relentless Ukrainian drone strikes on its warehouses. It was Wildberries’ first publicly announced move to address the huge logistical challenge posed by the near-night»»»

WASHINGTON: Immigration and Customs Enforcement is moving to equip officers with body cameras in the next two months but the agency’s policy gives it broad control over what footage will be made public by specifying any releases must be in its “best interests.” After years of delays, ICE said its f»»»

Fifteen vessels operated by Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) have been targeted by missiles and drones since the start of the conflict while transiting the Strait of Hormuz, the company said on Friday. Get updated faster and for FREE: Download the Gulf News app now - simply click here.In a st»»»