Mena Today

For Iran's clerical leaders, engaging with the "Great Satan" to hammer out a nuclear deal and ease crippling sanctions may for once be the lesser of two evils.

Portugal will hold an early parliamentary election - its third in just over three years - on May 18, President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa said on Thursday, two days after the centre-right minority government lost a parliamentary confidence vote.

The conflict in Sudan has created the "largest and the most devastating humanitarian crisis in the world" as the warring parties lay siege to towns and block aid deliveries, top aid officials told the U.N. Security Council on Thursday.

Russia castigated Syria's new leaders in a closed United Nations briefing this week, two sources briefed on the meeting told Reuters, warning against the rise of jihadists in Syria and comparing sectarian killings of Alawites to Rwanda's genocide.

Turkey's foreign minister, defence minister and the head of the MIT intelligence agency are in Damascus on a working visit, the Turkish Foreign Ministry said on Thursday, without providing details.

The head of the Druze community in Israel on Thursday hailed plans for the first visit by a Druze religious delegation from Syria in five decades, despite escalating cross-border tensions underscored by an Israeli airstrike on Damascus.

Israel carried out "genocidal acts" against Palestinians by systematically destroying women's healthcare facilities during the conflict in Gaza, and used sexual violence as a war strategy, United Nations experts said in a report on Thursday.

The Lebanese army on Thursday received a soldier who had been detained by Israel on Sunday, the army said in a post on X.

Iran's foreign minister Abbas Araqchi has not ruled out talks with Washington, but says they can only take place if both countries are on "equal terms," an Iranian state-run newspaper reported on Thursday.

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Thursday that he would put a 200% wine tariff on all wines and other alcoholic products coming out of the European Union if the bloc did not remove its tariff on whiskey.

Israel carried out an air strike on the Syrian capital Damascus on Thursday, targeting what the military said was a command centre belonging to the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad, used to direct 'terrorist activities' against Israel.

Russian President Vladimir Putin's top foreign policy aide said on Thursday that he had told Washington that a 30-day ceasefire proposed by the United States to pause the war in Ukraine would simply give Kyiv's forces a much-needed battlefield respite.