A sweeping overhaul of Germany’s intelligence services proposed by the government could infringe on police powers in violation of constitutional safeguards, opposition politicians have warned. On Wednesday, Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt presented a 730-page package comprising three draft law»»»

RIYADH: Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Centcom chief Brad Cooper discussed efforts to de-escalate tensions in the region, the Saudi Press Agency reported early on Friday. They discussed a number of topics related to cooperation between Saudi Arabia and the US in the field of defense. In addit»»»

The water level of the Caspian Sea has fallen to its lowest point in about 200 years and continues to decline, a local Iranian environmental official said following a meeting among the countries surrounding the body of water on August 12.  Mohammad Reza Kanani, head of the Department of Enviro»»»

Ukraine's power generation capacity has collapsed from just under 60GW before the war to just 12GW today. If Russia's missiles get through this winter the way they did last year, the shortfall could nearly double. Ukraine already has a 5-6GW deficit of power generation between what it can produce a»»»

CAIRO: Egypt on Thursday called for Sudan’s political future to be determined by its own people, backing a Sudanese-led process, as Cairo reiterated its opposition to any attempt to partition its war-torn southern neighbor. Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty said that any political process fo»»»

BEIRUT: Syrian and Lebanese officials have agreed to strengthen coordination along their shared border, including measures to combat smuggling, while easing the movement of travelers and goods through official crossings, Syria’s state news agency SANA reported on Thursday. Delegations from the two »»»

BEIRUT: A British company said Thursday it has been hired to salvage a grounded Russian shadow fleet tanker off Oman’s coast and stop an oil spill that is threatening wildlife as it reaches the country’s shoreline following its dramatic spread in recent weeks. Satellite images have shown that oil f»»»

Aug. 13 (UPI) -- Ecuadorian authorities seized a half-ton of cocaine hidden in a truck near the border with Colombia whose packages were marked with the names of soccer stars Erling Haaland and Lionel Messi. The Attorney General's Office said agents found 370 blocks of cocaine inside a modified com»»»

Dubai: XRG, ADNOC’s international energy investment company, is entering Venezuela through an interest in the offshore Loran gas licence, giving the Abu Dhabi-based company exposure to one of Latin America’s significant undeveloped gas resources and extending its rapidly growing international gas p»»»

QUSRA: For five nights, Israeli settlers surrounded three Palestinian homes on the outskirts of a town in the occupied West Bank, preventing the families from leaving safely as their food and water supplies dwindled. Qusai Abu Rida was holed up inside with his teenage son when settlers cut the wate»»»

NEW YORK: A right-wing Israeli think tank hired a major Washington lobbying firm to promote a proposal calling for the US to withdraw from the UN, targeting senior officials in the Trump administration and members of Congress, Haaretz reported. The Misgav Institute for National Security and Zionist»»»

Rome: A powerful explosion rocked an ammunition factory near Rome but no injuries were reported, emergency services and the factory owner said. Firefighters and police were at the site near Colleferro, a town about 40 kilometres (25 miles) southeast of Rome, and "complex operations" were under way,»»»

ROME: A powerful explosion rocked an ammunition factory Thursday near Colleferro, a town about 40 kilometers (25 miles) southeast of Rome, police said. Firefighters and police were at the site and “complex operations” were underway, police told AFP without immediately providing further details. The»»»

NEW YORK CITY: Members of the UN Security Council condemned an escalating wave of Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia and international shipping. They warned that the threat of Yemen relapsing into full-scale war was at its gravest level in four years, and pressed Iran to end its support for the group. »»»

Israeli soldiers observe Palestinians during a raid in the town of Qusra in the West Bank in Israel Thursday. The Israeli army entered Qusra following days of a settler siege on Palestinian homes and declared the area a closed military zone to dismantle the illegal settler outpost. Photo by Alaa Ba»»»

The Regional Inspectorates of Environment and Water (RIEW) in Bulgaria carried out more than 2,100 inspections at 2,009 sites across the country in July, the press office of the Environment and Water Ministry said. Fire prevention at waste treatment facilities, protecting the cleanliness of the Bla»»»

Meeting with Turkish Minister of Transport and Infrastructure Abdulkadir Uraloglu here on Thursday, Prime Minister Rumen Radev said that the future of the region will increasingly be determined by connectivity between Bulgaria and Turkiye as a factor in the development of Southeastern Europe, creat»»»

Britain’s economic growth slowed in the second quarter of 2026 compared with the first three months of the year, official data released Thursday, August 13, showed, as domestic political turmoil and the fallout from the war on Iran weigh on the economy. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said»»»

Occupied Jerusalem: The Israeli occupation forces (IOF) arrested 30 Palestinians on Thursday in various areas across the West Bank. WAFA news agency reported that the IOF arrested seven Palestinians, all family members of slain Palestinians, during a raid on their homes in the city of Qalqiliya, se»»»

Abu Dhabi: Under the directives of President His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the United Arab Emirates, through the UAE Aid Agency, has announced an urgent humanitarian response worth US$10 million to assist those affected by the earthquake that struck the friendly Republic of Colom»»»

US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee on Thursday denounced a siege by Israeli settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank village of Qusra as a "horrific act of terror". Huckabee, an evangelical Christian pastor who in the past has embraced Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, sa»»»

Zambians vote Thursday in a general election widely expected to give President Hakainde Hichilema a second term, as his economic record faces a test from voters frustrated by the cost of living and opposition parties seek to capitalise on discontent despite deep divisions. Zambia goes to the polls »»»

Crude oil carrier Universal Winner, a South Korean oil tanker operated by Korean shipping company HMM, reaches waters off the southeastern port city of Ulsan, South Korea, on June 10. File Photo by Yonhap South Korea/EPA Aug. 13 (UPI) -- The price of crude oil was on the decline on Thursday after t»»»

Dubai: A fire engulfed a tourist boat carrying families off Turkey’s southwestern coast on Thursday, forcing passengers, including children, to jump into the sea as authorities evacuated 115 people from the vessel, officials said. Footage of the incident showed flames sweeping through the boat and »»»

Poland has arrested a Russian national who was allegedly planning to kill a Ukrainian-American dual citizen in Warsaw, Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Thursday. Tusk added that this was the first time that “someone on the order of Russia” had sought to attack an American citizen on NATO territory.&»»»

Suspicion that the fire and subsequent explosions at the EMCO ammunition plant may have been deliberately caused points toward Russia, according to ammunition expert and former deputy technical director of the company Naiden Iliev. He said Russia could potentially benefit from destabilizing the sit»»»

Rome: An explosion rocked an ammunition factory near Colleferro, a town about 40 kilometres (25 miles) southeast of Rome, Italy's carabinieri police said Thursday. Firefighters and police were at the site and "complex operations" were underway, police told AFP without immediately providing further »»»

New Delhi: Air India pilots will undergo mandatory drug screening starting Thursday, according to an internal memo seen by AFP, after a captain involved in a serious mid-air incident reportedly tested positive for marijuana. Existing rules require airlines to randomly test at least 10 percent of th»»»

LONDON: The government of the Syrian Arab Republic is committed to expanding cooperation with the World Bank to advance financial, economic and institutional reforms, Finance Minister Mohammed Yisr Barnieh said on Thursday. Barnieh met Dahlia Khalifa, the World Bank’s Middle East director, in Damas»»»

Russia’s Rosatom is accelerating work on the Paks II project, which will provide Hungary with two new nuclear reactors, but a key political relationship behind the massive investment has changed dramatically. While Viktor Orbán’s governments maintained unusually close ties with Moscow for years, Ro»»»

Dubai: The world survived the first oil shock of the US-Iran war. Nearly six months later, the buffer that helped protect consumers from an even bigger hit is getting thinner. Global oil stockpiles are rapidly diminishing as traffic through the Strait of Hormuz remains effectively stalled, raising »»»

KHARTOUM: Drones targeted the Sudanese capital Khartoum on Thursday as paramilitary forces launched ground attacks on central Sudan and the southeastern Ethiopian border, an AFP correspondent and sources from the rival sides reported. Since April 2023, Sudan has been ravaged by war between the Suda»»»

RIYADH: Saudi Arabia has achieved a 69 percent phaseout of ozone-depleting substances over the past five years, as of the first half of 2026, underscoring its commitment to the Montreal Protocol and the gradual elimination of hydrochlorofluorocarbons, according to the National Center for Environmen»»»

ABIDJAN: Seven people were killed last week in a land dispute between communities in the southeast of the Ivory Coast, a prosecutor said. “A dispute between members of different communities living in the village of Kossandji escalated into violent clashes, leaving seven people dead and several inju»»»

RIYADH: Saudi Arabia’s Cabinet has been reconstituted under the chairmanship of Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman, with all current ministers retaining their positions, according to a royal decree issued by King Salman on Thursday. The decree reconstitutes the Council of Ministers»»»

Russia and Ukraine have exchanged civilians on the territory of Belarus, Belta state news agency reported. "Eight individuals proceeded to Russia, while seven made their way to Ukraine," the report said.The procedure took place at the Novaya Guta border checkpoint, with Belarusian ambulance crews a»»»

Dubai: Diplomatic and security activity continued across the Gulf and wider Middle East on Thursday, with sharp exchanges between the US and Iran, a new defence pact among regional powers, continued Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon and a counterterrorism operation in Kuwait. For UAE residents, t»»»

KYIV: Ukrainian drones struck a major refinery deep inside Russia, military officials said Thursday, the fourth in three days in Kyiv’s monthslong campaign to choke Moscow’s vital oil sector. Russia is one of the world’s biggest energy producers, with oil providing an economic mainstay as its army »»»

A partial state of disaster has been declared for seven days within a 500-meter radius of the EMCO facility near the village of Belitsa, the Municipality of Tryavna said. The state of disaster has been put in place to ensure public safety, allow the Bulgarian land forces to clear the area, and prev»»»

MOSCOW: A Russian military officer was killed in a bomb attack on Thursday in Russian-annexed Crimea, and a woman was arrested on suspicion of assassinating him on behalf of Ukrainian special services, the regional governor said. There was no immediate comment from Ukraine. Several unofficial Russi»»»

DHAKA: The Civil Aviation Authority of Bangladesh announced on Thursday that the number of weekly flights to Saudi Arabia would nearly double and Saudi carriers will get access to another two airports to enable more routes to Riyadh, Dammam, Madinah and Jeddah. Under a new cooperation agreement bet»»»

The water level of the Caspian Sea has fallen to its lowest point in about 200 years and continues to decline, a local Iranian environmental official said following a meeting among the countries surrounding the body of water on August 12.  Mohammad Reza Kanani, head of the Department of Enviro»»»

Soft power, in the form of scientific cooperation, is helping to drive an expansion of China’s economic influence in Central Asia. Uzbekistan and China, for example, recently launched the joint hyperspectral satellite, Samarkand-2028, which will support applications in agriculture, environmental mo»»»

LONDON: An Israeli drone strike killed one Palestinian and wounded several others on Thursday in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, medical sources said. Nasser Hospital received the body of the person killed and several wounded after an Israeli drone struck a motorcycle carrying two people ne»»»

PoliticsEritreaEritrea: Key player in the geopolitical gamble at the HornMartina SchwikowskiAmid growing tensions and security risks in the Horn of Africa, Eritrea, with its strategically important coastal points on the Red Sea, is emerging as an important player in the region. https://p.dw.com/p/5»»»

The National Network for Children, the Parents Association and the Bulgarian Family Planning and Sexual Health Association have invited Interior Minister Ivan Demerdzhiev to discuss cooperation on preventing the online radicalization of children and young people, the National Network for Children s»»»

Secretary's SpeechLebanon PalestineZionist EntityRegional and International International More Video Language Ar En Fr EsSubscribe for Weekly Updates Subscribe Zionist Attacks Leave More Casualties in Gaza amid Command Rifts over Withdrawal from Strip 13-08-2026 16:23 PM According to Palestinian re»»»

DOHA: The State of Qatar participated in the 18th Arab Conference of Heads of Border, Airport and Port Security Services, held at the headquarters of the General Secretariat of the Council of Arab Interior Ministers in Tunisia. The Qatari delegation was headed by Major General Dr Abdulhadi Mohammed»»»

Dubai: Pakistan has named its first lunar rover “Jinnah-1”, which is scheduled to travel to the Moon in 2029 aboard China’s Chang’e-8 mission, Dawn reported. The Pakistan Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission (Suparco) announced the name on Thursday at a ceremony in Islamabad. Also Read: W»»»

Dubai: Kuwaiti authorities have arrested a woman accused of illegally treating patients from her home, issuing sick leave certificates and selling herbal mixtures in return for money, the Interior Ministry said. The Criminal Security Sector, represented by the General Department of Criminal Investi»»»