Mena Today

Dubai South, the region's largest urban master development focused on aviation, logistics and real estate, has officially inaugurated Dior's new Regional Distribution Centre for the Middle East at the EZDubai Logistics Hub. 

A series of explosions at a military site near the city of Aleppo, in northern Syria, wounded four people early Monday, the government announced. It marks the fourth such episode involving explosions in less than a month in a country still emerging from a long civil war that began in 2011.

The pro-Putin ruling United Russia party retained its decisive majority in the national parliament, near-complete election results showed on Monday, while the anti-war Yabloko party appeared to have won a tiny foothold in one regional parliament.

Iranian media reported Monday that the United States has denied visas to part of President Masoud Pezeshkian's delegation, which is set to leave Iran Tuesday to attend the UN General Assembly in New York.

Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan bin Abdullah took part in a Gulf Cooperation Council ministerial coordination meeting in New York ahead of the high-level week of the 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly, the Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported.

France will summon Iran's ambassador and take appropriate measures in response after Iranian authorities sealed a French language centre affiliated with its embassy in Tehran, the Foreign Ministry said on Sunday. 

Ramzan Kadyrov, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, has been re-elected to a fifth term as leader of his southern, mainly Muslim region of Chechnya with almost 100% of the vote, Russia's electoral commission said on Monday.

A total of 17 commodity vessels transited the Strait of Hormuz on the weekend, down from 37 a week earlier, shipping data showed on Monday, as tension in the Gulf persisted with the US and Iran in stalemate. 

An explosion was heard Sunday near Erbil airport in northern Iraq's Kurdistan region, where troops from the US-led anti-jihadist coalition remain stationed.

Iran warned on Sunday against any big new attack by the United States and its allies, saying it had information such a move was being prepared, adding to the anxiety in a region already on edge after drone and missile strikes on Saudi Arabia. 

Maronite Patriarch Béchara Raï raised the stakes Sunday, declaring that southern Lebanon "is not a bargaining chip." In his Sunday homily in Mayfouk, in the Jbeil district, the cardinal called for the "protection" of the region, insisting that such protection "begins with the state holding a monopoly on weapons », a thinly veiled call for Hezbollah's disarmament.

A major step forward in Morocco-Israel relations: the two countries "have confirmed their agreement on elevating [their] diplomatic missions to full embassy status," Le Monde reports.