Mena Today

A rare United Arab Emirates-Iran joint economic commission will convene in Abu Dhabi from Tuesday to Wednesday, the Iranian Labour News Agency reported, as Tehran seeks to bolster economic ties with Gulf states amid mounting U.S. pressure.

Yemen's Houthis said they targeted the MSC Orion container ship in a drone attack in the Indian Ocean as part of their ongoing campaign against international shipping in solidarity with Palestinians against Israel's military actions in Gaza.

Eli Harel was an Israeli soldier in his early thirties when he was sent into Lebanon in 2006 to battle fighters from the Iranian-backed group Hezbollah in a bloody, largely inconclusive month-long war.

Rival Palestinian groups Hamas and Fatah have expressed the political will to seek reconciliation through dialogue at unity talks in Beijing, China's foreign ministry said on Tuesday.

On Monday, the French National Assembly passed a resolution urging the government to formally recognize the mass killings of Assyrian-Chaldeans by Ottoman authorities during 1915-1918 as a genocide. 

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi received a phone call on Monday from U.S. President Joe Biden to discuss the latest developments in negotiations over a ceasefire in Gaza and the dangers of a military escalation in Rafah, a statement from Egypt's presidency said.

The debris from a missile that landed in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv on Jan. 2 was from a North Korean Hwasong-11 series ballistic missile, United Nations sanctions monitors told a Security Council committee in a report seen by Reuters on Monday.

An Italian navy ship shot down a drone fired by Yemen's Houthi rebels and targeting a European cargo, the Italian defence ministry said in a statement on Monday.

Turkish Airlines is negotiating with both Airbus and Boeing about buying 235 aircraft as part of its expansion plans, Chairman Ahmet Bolat said on Monday.

UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron, speaking from Riyadh at the conclusion of the World Economy Forum, announced a "generous offer" for a 40-day ceasefire in Gaza.

The U.S. military's cost estimate to build a pier off Gaza to deliver humanitarian aid has risen to $320 million, a U.S. defense official and a source familiar with the matter told Reuters.