News Archive

Iran cannot participate in the 2026 World Cup after co-host the U.S. launched airstrikes alongside Israel, Sports Minister Ahmad Donyamali said on Wednesday.

The Spanish government has officially terminated the functions of its ambassador to Israel, confirmed by a royal decree published Wednesday in the Official State Gazette. 

A drone struck a major U.S. diplomatic facility in Iraq on Tuesday amid the U.S.-Israeli air war on Iran, but there were no injuries and everyone was accounted for, according to a U.S. official and an internal State Department alert seen by Reuters.

The U.S. and Israel traded air strikes with Iran across the Middle East on Wednesday as the besieged Tehran government warned its state security forces were ready with "fingers on the trigger" to confront any anti-government protests.

Israel is not seeking an endless war with Iran and will coordinate with the United States on when to end the fighting, Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said on Tuesday, declining to publicly state a timeline for when the conflict could end.

US envoy Steve Witkoff declared Tuesday evening on CNBC that "almost all of Iran's uranium enrichment and conversion capabilities have been destroyed" following the joint US-Israel strikes launched on February 28.

Lebanon's Hezbollah is applying lessons from its last war with Israel as it braces for a possible full-scale Israeli invasion and protracted conflict, returning to its roots in guerrilla warfare in south Lebanon, four Lebanese sources said.

The United States and Israel pounded Iran on Tuesday with what the Pentagon and Iranians on the ground said were the most intense airstrikes of the war, despite global markets betting that President Donald Trump will seek to end the conflict soon.

Israel's military pounded the Lebanese capital's southern suburbs with air strikes on Tuesday and its troops pushed deeper into the country's south, as an Israeli envoy said the key to ending the war was disarming Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. 

Russia has so far been the only winner from the war in the Middle East as energy prices soar and attention for its war against Ukraine has faded, EU Council President Antonio Costa said on Tuesday.

Congo Republic President Denis Sassou Nguesso looks set to extend his decades-long rule in elections on Sunday, even as his advanced age and a term limit fuel speculation about who will eventually succeed him. 

Iran's Revolutionary Guards said on Tuesday they would not allow "one litre of oil" to be shipped from the Middle East if U.S. and Israeli attacks continue, prompting a warning from President Donald Trump that the U.S. would hit Iran much harder if it blocked exports from the vital energy-producing region.