Mena Today

The Saudi-led coalition in Yemen said on Thursday that the United Arab Emirates had spirited a separatist leader out of the country in a dramatic twist to a row between the Gulf powers, as witnesses said Saudi-backed forces advanced to the port of Aden after losing ground there.

Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are in talks to convert about $2 billion of Saudi loans into a JF-17 fighter jet deal, two Pakistani sources said, deepening military cooperation months after the two nations signed a mutual defence pact last year.  

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that the United States would withdraw from dozens of international and U.N. entities, including a key climate treaty and a U.N. body that promotes gender equality and women's empowerment, because they "operate contrary to U.S. national interests."

The Lebanese army said on Thursday that it had achieved the goal of a state monopoly on arms in the country’s south in an "effective and tangible way", but said there was more work to be done to clear unexploded ordnance and tunnels in the area.

Mohammad Sinwar, the elusive Hamas military chief in Gaza, had for months since the death of his brother, in 2024, been Israel's most wanted man. On December 29, Hamas announced that he had died, aged 49, around seven months after Israel said it killed him in a strike.

Switzerland announced the seizure of bank assets belonging to 36 associates of Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela's ousted president. While the exact amount remains undisclosed, this action represents only a fraction of the deposed Marxist leader's wealth.

Turmoil in Yemen's south has exposed a major feud between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, yet their $30 billion trade ties are proving remarkably resilient.

Since the mid-1980s, Lebanese Hezbollah, working in close collaboration with Iranian intelligence services and the Revolutionary Guards, has meticulously woven a network of businesses within Lebanese diaspora communities worldwide, operations frequently suspected of masking illicit activities.

In Harasta, a suburb east of Damascus, restoration crews are working to bring a centuries-old public bathhouse back into use after years in which war and displacement disrupted daily life across Eastern Ghouta. 

Yemeni separatist leader Aidarous al-Zubaidi, who took up arms early in life and never shied away from joining conflicts, shows no signs of abandoning his dream of creating an independent state in the south.

The United States needs to control Venezuela's oil sales and revenue to drive the changes it wants to see in the country, Energy Secretary Chris Wright said on Wednesday.