Khaled Al Hameidi Doha In the quiet corridors of the Palais des Nations in Geneva, international human rights discourse often finds itself entangled in the sterile mechanics of bureaucracy. During the interactive dialogue on August 12 and 13 before the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Pers»»»

Europe's gas tanks are emptier than at any point on record for the time of year, and the cargoes that should be filling them are sailing to Asia instead. EU storage sites hit a record low in percentage terms on August 1, at 57.2% full against 57.3% on the same date in 2021, the previous worst year.»»»

Turkey wants to hand Ukraine a stockpile of American cluster bombs that has been sitting in its depots since the 1980s. Moscow has asked Washington and Ankara to explain themselves. Any such transfer would do "serious harm ... to our bilateral relations with Washington and Ankara," Russian foreign »»»

PARIS: Spain international Ferran Torres, who scored the only goal in last month’s World Cup final, signed for reigning European champions Paris Saint-Germain from Barcelona on Saturday. The 26-year-old forward cost the Ligue 1 title-holders a reported 50 million euros ($58 million). “Paris Saint-G»»»

President Donald Trump wants the Strait of Hormuz, between Oman and Iran, to become U.S. territory. Photo by Stringer/EPA Aug. 15 (UPI) -- President Donald Trump on Friday said he wants the Strait of Hormuz to become U.S. territory. Speaking at an event in New York, Trump said he plans to declare o»»»

Secretary's SpeechLebanon PalestineZionist EntityRegional and International International More Video Language Ar En Fr EsSubscribe for Weekly Updates Subscribe Lebanon’s Gathering of Families of Child Martyrs Condemn Israeli Massacre in Ansar 15-08-2026 22:20 PM People check a destroyed home that w»»»

Hungary’s governing Tisza Party is preparing to launch a new online platform called Közhang, promising to give people a direct say in national and local issues and allow them to track what happens to their proposals. The name has a curious connection to Prime Minister Péter Magyar’s past: he appear»»»

Authors: Vitruvius and Guests The idea that our homes can communicate professional as well as personal identities may seem as new as the work-from-home revolution. But it was second nature to the ancient Romans, for whom the home was in many ways the center of public and private life. Roman authors»»»

JERUSALEM: Israel wants new and more ambitious US-brokered talks with Lebanon after carrying out deadly strikes targeting Hezbollah, a spokesman for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Saturday. The Israeli strikes against Hezbollah “should jumpstart the talks and make them much more serious,»»»

The Israeli military said on Saturday that its strike on the Lebanese village of Ansar, where authorities reported seven people killed including children, targeted a Hezbollah commander. It said it "struck a central headquarters of the Radwan Force", referring to an elite Hezbollah unit, adding tha»»»

Israel wants new and more ambitious U.S.-brokered talks with Lebanon after carrying out deadly strikes targeting Hezbollah, a spokesman for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Saturday. The Israeli strikes against Hezbollah "should jumpstart the talks and make them much more serious, not do t»»»

QUSRA, West Bank: Israeli settlers attacked municipal crews attempting to restore water and electricity to three besieged Palestinian homes in the West Bank village of Qusra on Saturday, while Israeli forces detained four workers, according to the village’s mayor, Abdul Azim Wadi. The crews were di»»»

Bogotá, Aug. 15 (SANA) Former Colombian President Gustavo Petro said Saturday that Colombians consider the occupied Syrian Golan to be Syrian territory, not Israeli territory. Petro said on X that Colombians, like most of the international community, consider the Golan to be Syrian territory rather»»»

Sharjah: A scientific research mission at sea was brought to an abrupt halt after a diver from another team went missing, prompting researchers and crew members to suspend their work and prepare to join an emergency search-and-rescue operation. The incident is documented in the second part of Echo »»»

Cambridge: UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham called for "reflection" Saturday after the death of Cambridge academic Jason Arday as his family denounced what they called years of harassment amid accusations of plagiarism. Arday, 41, was found dead Friday, just over a week after he quit as a Cambridge U»»»

NIZI, Congo: Every day, community health worker Gédéon Banga Ngbape and his team fan out across communities in eastern Congo looking for people who may have crossed paths with the country’s fastest-growing Ebola outbreak in history. The workers investigate dozens of alerts, search for those exposed»»»

ADEN: Yemen’s military on Saturday promised a “tough response” after the Iran-backed Houthi militia fired six ballistic missiles at the western port city of Mokha on Friday, killing eight people. Armed forces spokesperson Col. Majed Al-Nazili said the military would not allow the Houthis to turn ci»»»

Dubai: As India marks its 80th Independence Day, its large and vibrant diaspora in the UAE has come together to reflect on what their mother land means to them from thousands of miles away from home. From a poet who calls India "a feeling of motherhood" to a doctor who dreams of a nation that blend»»»

Chad’s President Mahamat Idriss Déby on Friday pardoned the jailed ex-prime minister and leader of Chad’s main opposition party Succès Masra, along with eight other party leaders. Masra had been serving a 20-year sentence, convicted of hate speech, xenophobia and inciting a massacre, in what Human »»»

Tensions around the Strait of Hormuz remained elevated today, with Iran declaring it alone will control the strategic waterway and the UAE condemning an attack on a vessel linked to state oil company ADNOC. The US-Iran conflict has already disrupted some UAE flights to Bahrain and Kuwait, with airl»»»

LONDON: Afghanistan’s women are “fighting alone” against discrimination by the Taliban authorities and feel abandoned by the world, Afghan journalist Zahra Joya told AFP. “I lost everything in my country five years ago,” she said in an interview in London. The founder in 2020 of Rukhshana Media — a»»»

JEDDAH: When a video of a disabled Muslim man defending a mosque in Nepal began circulating on social media, he could hardly have imagined that his moment of courage would eventually take him to Makkah to perform Umrah. The story dates back to late January, when a widely circulated video showed a M»»»

Lebanese state media said an Israeli strike in the country's south on Saturday killed seven people, including three children and two women, in the worst toll since deals in June saw a lull in hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah. Four people were killed in another Israeli airstrike on a two-sto»»»

NEW DELHI: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Saturday that India’s decades-long Maoist insurgency was nearing its end but warned that the country now faced a new battle against what he called “dimagi Naxals,” or people who align with the movement’s ideology. In his address to the nation o»»»

Palestinians in the occupied West Bank village of Qusra have huddled inside their homes for days on end, unable to leave because of the threat posed by Israeli settlers. The Israeli military, which over the past three years has displayed staggering military and intelligence capabilities from Beirut»»»

UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham said Saturday the death of Jason Arday was "a tragedy on so many levels". Cambridge's youngest ever Black professor, who resigned from the university last week following a high-profile plagiarism scandal that raised claims of racism, was found dead Friday. B»»»

Ukraine could run out of room to store 8mn-11mn tonnes of its own grain by November, with the ports shut and the new crop still coming in as this year’s harvest gets underway in earnest. "At the current limited pace of exports, we could reach a point in November where there is a shortfall in domest»»»

Ukraine could run out of room to store 8mn-11mn tonnes of its own grain by November, with the ports shut and the new crop still coming in as this year’s harvest gets underway in earnest. "At the current limited pace of exports, we could reach a point in November where there is a shortfall in domest»»»

JEDDAH: Canadian writer and educator Amy Lin’s memoir, “Here After,” is a record of her bewildering transition into widowhood after the death of her beloved husband Kurtis. He was a 32-year-old architect who died while running a half-marathon during the COVID-19 pandemic. There’s an immense generos»»»

Lebanese state media said an Israeli strike in the country's south on Saturday killed seven people, including three children and two women, in the worst toll since deals in June saw a lull in hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah. Four people were killed and five others were meanwhile wounded in»»»

Five years after seizing Kabul and returning to power, the Taliban is celebrating what it calls a more secure and "free" Afghanistan. But its anniversary comes amid mounting criticism over sweeping restrictions on women and girls, economic hardship and continued international isolation. The Taliban»»»

The foreign policy program of the government of Prime Minister Rumen Radev for 2026-2030 keeps Bulgaria’s membership in the European Union and NATO as the foundation of the country’s international policy, while calling for a more active role in both organizations and a stronger defense of national »»»

Abu Dhabi: The UAE has strongly condemned what it described as an aggressive Iranian attack on an ADNOC vessel while it was transiting the Strait of Hormuz. No injuries were reported. In a statement, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the attack constituted a flagrant violation of UN Security Cou»»»

The UAE has strongly condemned what it described as a hostile Iranian attack on a vessel affiliated with ADNOC while it was transiting the Strait of Hormuz. No injuries were reported. In a statement, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) said the attack was a clear violation of UN Security Council»»»

Hungary’s emergency operation to raise the Danube’s water level near the Paks Nuclear Power Plant has produced its first encouraging result, even before the two barges being sunk in the river have reached the bottom. The two 80-metre barges were positioned across the Danube as part of the emergency»»»

ABU DHABI: The United Arab Emirates condemned what it described as an Iranian attack on a vessel linked to ADNOC as it transited the Strait of Hormuz, saying no injuries were reported. The UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement Saturday that the incident violated a UN Security Council »»»

Abu Dhabi: The repeated targeting of ADNOC vessels will not push the UAE away from a measured approach built around deterrence, diplomacy and international law, Dr Anwar Gargash, Diplomatic Adviser to the UAE President, said on Saturday, following the latest attack on an ADNOC vessel in the Strait »»»

Dubai: Parts of the UAE could see light rain this weekend, with the best chance coming on Sunday across northern and eastern areas, according to the National Centre of Meteorology. Saturday itself is expected to remain largely dry. Conditions will be fair to partly cloudy, becoming cloudy at times »»»

On the morning of 18 August 1995, a visibly distressed man walked into the police station in Jászberény and told officers to arrest him. He said he had strangled his wife during an argument at their home in the Hungarian town. However, investigators soon established that the killing had been preced»»»

Varna Day is being celebrated on August 15 with concerts, sports events and other initiatives across the city. The programme traditionally begins with a solemn Holy Mass at the Dormition of the Mother of God Cathedral, followed by a military ceremony and the raising of the flags of Bulgaria, Varna »»»

Dubai Municipality intensified inspections of the emirate’s construction sector in July 2026, carrying out 4,992 visits to projects under construction and recording more than 1,761 engineering and technical violations. According to the municipality’s periodic bulletin on X, regulatory action was ta»»»

Honolulu: A strengthening tropical storm named Lala is set to hit Hawaii's Big Island with hurricane force gales on Saturday, bringing dangerous winds, rainfall and heavy surf. The governor of the US Pacific island state declared a state of emergency as the storm barrelled towards the archipelago, »»»

The US Republican Party must address the economic pressures facing Americans or risk driving more young people toward socialism, Vice President J.D. Vance has said. Vance made the remarks in an interview with Fox News on Thursday, pointing to the cost of housing and education, access to well-paid j»»»

Dubai, UAE: United Arab Emirates' state-owned oil giant ADNOC said Saturday one of its vessels came under attack in the Hormuz strait, the latest incident in the waterway at the centre of the US-Iran conflict. The Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) "confirmed that one of its vessels was attacke»»»

Dubai: Sarath Sasidharan has celebrated his first-ever Big Ticket win, taking home Dh 100,000 in Series 289, with a little help from the people closest to him. The 33-year-old technician from Kerala in India has been living in the UAE since 2007. He first heard about Big Ticket through his colleagu»»»

From a personal message by Dubai's Ruler about the value of family time to a new visa offer for Indian tourists, several stories captured readers' attention this week. Other major developments included Dubai's announcement of a public holiday for the Prophet Mohammed's Birthday, new travel options »»»

An Air India flight from Bangkok to Delhi was forced to abort its take-off after the pilots detected a hydraulic malfunction, marking the second hydraulic-related incident involving an Air India A320 in 10 days. According to an exclusive report by the New Indian Express, Flight AI2335, carrying mor»»»

Oakland, United States: A coalition of US states will seek around $200 billion in damages against Meta, which they accuse of intentionally designing Facebook and Instagram to be addictive for children, when a landmark trial kicks off on Tuesday. Meta previously had claimed in court documents that t»»»

RIYADH: As Saudi Arabia prepares to host Expo 2030, the experience of Osaka 2025 offers lessons on how the Kingdom can turn the six-month event into longer-term economic and business opportunities. Expo 2030 Riyadh is expected to attract more than 42 million visits from 197 countries across a site »»»

DUBAI: Saudi Arabia’s next generation of screenwriters has completed a feature film development program designed to strengthen emerging talent and support new voices across the Kingdom. Netflix and Righters House have announced the completion of the “Write the Future: Feature Film Writers Lab” in S»»»