Mena Today

As 2024 comes to a close, the Middle East finds itself at the end of an extremely turbulent and eventful year, according to the latest Middle East Outlook 2025 report published by the Economist Intelligence Unit. 

A Russian cargo plane departed from Russia's air base in the Syrian port city of Latakia for Libya on Saturday, a Syrian security official stationed outside the facility said, following rebels' overthrow of President Bashar al-Assad last weekend.

Qatar will send its first official delegation to Damascus on Sunday to meet Syria's interim government and discuss reopening the Qatari embassy and enhancing humanitarian aid deliveries, a Qatari official told Reuters on Friday.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva left intensive care on Friday, Sao Paulo's Sirio-Libanes Hospital said in a medical note, as he recovers from two operations this week to relieve and prevent bleeding in his skull.

The rebel group that led the ouster of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad - Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) - has long been under United Nations sanctions, which the U.N. special envoy for Syria Geir Pedersen has described as "a complicating factor for all of us."

This Friday evening, December 13, we will be performing a scheduled upgrade on our servers.

Greece is in advanced talks to buy 36 PULS rocket artillery systems from Israel as it pushes to modernise its armed forces, two officials said on Friday.

Bashar al-Assad confided in almost no one about his plans to flee Syria as his reign collapsed. Instead, aides, officials and even relatives were deceived or kept in the dark, more than a dozen people with knowledge of the events told Reuters.

Turkey can step in to resolve disputes between Sudan and the United Arab Emirates, President Tayyip Erdogan told the head of Sudan's sovereign council Abdel Fattah al-Burhan in a phone call on Friday, the Turkish presidency said.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken made an unannounced visit to Iraq on Friday to meet Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani for talks on the future of neighboring Syria.

French President Emmanuel Macron named Francois Bayrou as his fourth prime minister of 2024 on Friday, charging the veteran centrist with steering the country out of its second political crisis in the past six months.

Tens of thousands of Syrians, mostly Shi'ite Muslims, have fled to Lebanon since Sunni Muslim Islamists toppled Bashar al-Assad, fearing persecution despite assurances from the new rulers in Damascus that they will be safe, a Lebanese official said.