Mena Today

Iraq, fighting a booming currency black market, has considerably increased overseas dollar transactions through the official global SWIFT system, the Central Bank vice governor said on Monday.

Meta's oversight board on Tuesday called on the company to end its blanket ban on the Arabic word "shaheed," or "martyr" in English, after a year-long review found the Facebook owner's approach was "overbroad" and had unnecessarily suppressed the speech of millions of users.

Talks mediated by Egypt and Qatar on a Gaza ceasefire and hostage and prisoner releases are moving ahead and officials from Israel's Mossad spy agency remain in Doha for discussions, a source briefed on the talks told Reuters on Tuesday.

At least 13 people, nine of whom are believed to be pro-Iranian fighters and include a commander, were killed in air strikes in eastern Syria on Tuesday, a war monitor said.

Turkish Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya announced on Tuesday that Turkish authorities have arrested 147 individuals suspected of belonging to the jihadist group Islamic State (IS).

Relations between President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sank to a wartime low on Monday with the U.S. allowing passage of a Gaza ceasefire resolution at the United Nations and drawing a sharp rebuke from the Israeli leader.

The diplomatic crisis that erupted one month ago when Brazil's president likened the Israeli war against Hamas in Gaza to the Nazi genocide during World War Two has begun to calm down, Israel's envoy in Brasilia said on Monday.

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh will travel to Tehran on Tuesday to meet Iranian officials.

Many of Turkey's Kurds are set to put aside party loyalty and back Tayyip Erdogan's major rival in Istanbul on Sunday, knocking the president's hopes of winning back the city he once ran, according to pollsters.

Lebanon's caretaker prime minister, Najib Mikati, said on Monday that countries should pressure Israel to stop attacking Lebanon following a U.N. Security Council decision calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.

An Iraq court has acquitted a police officer previously convicted and sentenced to death for leading a group that gunned down well-known analyst and government adviser Hisham al-Hashemi more than three years ago in Baghdad, court officials told Reuters on Monday.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said he would have reacted the same way Israel did after Hamas' Oct. 7 attack, but that Israel was losing international support and should wrap up its war against the Islamist group in Gaza.