Mena Today

Regional power United Arab Emirates urged Iran and the United States on Tuesday to resolve a standoff that has led to mutual threats of air strikes when they resume talks this week, emphasizing that the Middle East does not need another war.

Talks with the U.S. should be pursued to secure national interests as long as "threats and unreasonable expectations" are avoided, President Masoud Pezeshkian posted on X on Tuesday.

Iran and the United States will resume nuclear talks on Friday in Turkey, Iranian and U.S. officials told Reuters on Monday, and U.S. President Donald Trump warned that with big U.S. warships heading to Iran, bad things would probably happen if a deal could not be reached.

The United Nations peacekeeping mission in Congo will send its first team to monitor a ceasefire between Congo’s government and the AFC/M23 rebel group in the coming days, Qatar’s foreign ministry said on Monday after hosting talks in Doha.

Morocco has evacuated more than 50,000 people, nearly half the population of the northwestern city of Ksar el-Kebir, as flooding driven by weeks of heavy rain threatened to inundate the city, state media said on Monday.

U.S. President Donald Trump's senior envoy Steve Witkoff is expected to visit Israel for meetings with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel's military chief, two senior Israeli officials said on Monday.

Rubber farmer Pinittaya Boonlieng sat with friends in a key political battleground in Thailand to discuss how to vote in the February 8 general election - a choice that once would have been simple in a region long loyal to former premier Thaksin Shinawatra.

Syrian government security forces deployed into a Kurdish-controlled city in the northeast on Monday under a U.S.-backed ceasefire deal that foresees the Kurdish-run regions being merged with Damascus.

Iran is weighing the terms for resuming talks with the United States soon, a foreign ministry official said on Monday, after both sides signalled readiness to revive diplomacy over a long-running nuclear dispute and dispel fears of a new regional war.

U.S. President Donald Trump's plan to end the Gaza war was given a boost on Monday with the reopening of the enclave's Rafah crossing with Egypt. But difficult questions remain unaddressed, including whether Hamas will disarm.

Israel reopened the border between Gaza and Egypt on Monday for a limited number of people on foot, allowing a small number of Palestinians to leave the enclave and some of those who escaped the war to return for the first time.

Phuket, Thailand’s flagship island destination, is stepping up efforts to diversify its tourism markets.