Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest crude oil exporter, on Saturday restructured some government ministries and reshuffled the cabinet to appoint new ministers, a step implementing the government’s wide reforms aimed at overhauling the Saudi economy amid lower oil prices that have eroded state r
The Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan outlined the next phase for Turkey in the first statement that he made after removing Prime Minister Ahmed Davutoglu from the political scene. Erdogan announced yesterday that the presidential system is “an urgent requirement” which means that the next prim
French President Francois Hollande, who hasn’t gained much popularity during his term, is preparing the ground for a potential re-election bid. His leftist base is in open revolt, protesting youth are clashing with police nearly every night, and France is in a six-month state of emergency — yet he i
Washington- On the fifth anniversary of the death of Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Leader Mark Kelton believes that Pakistani intelligence businesses poisoned him after the raid on Osama bin Laden. Kelton, who retired from CIA five years ago, said that he
Tunisia- Libyan Presidential Council’s delegate Mohamed al-Taher Siyala told Asharq Al-Awsat Newspaper that the political and military escalation witnessed in some Libyan cities and sides, including Sirte and some other areas east of Libya, will not reduce the Council’s determination to comple
Beirut on Sunday will hold its first elections since a months-long trash crisis drowned the Lebanese capital in mountains of garbage, with an outsider group of candidates challenging the political leaders who are widely seen as corrupt and incompetent. Beirut Madinati, Arabic for “Beirut, My C
The Saudi Ministry of Interior revealed yesterday that an operation carried out by security forces in the Makkah region resulted in two terrorists being killed and two others blowing themselves up. It has become clear that the four terrorists were part of a cell involved in the bombing of five mosqu
A senior Iranian official has met with the head of the Syrian Regime, Bashar Assad, and pledged unrelenting support for his government in the country’s five-year-old civil war. Ali Akbar Velayati, an adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, met with Assad in Damascus on S
Global progress fighting AIDS could be lost because prevention programs are suffering from a lack of leadership, accountability and money, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon warned on Friday. Headway in tackling the epidemic has been “inspiring,” with a 42 percent decline in AIDS-related
London- Sadiq Khan, 45, a Labor Party leader, a former human rights lawyer and a son of a bus driver from Pakistan, was declared the winner after a protracted count that extended into Saturday; thus, becoming the first Muslim to lead Britain’s capital after beating Tory Zac Goldsmith. The victory al
While people have been commuting using vehicles, a sign of economic status for both individuals and nations, on the relatively calm streets of Pyongyang, a new ride is recently catching on. In the capital of impoverished and isolated North Korea, which hosts the first congress of the country’s
Prosecutors have launched a probe into the sudden death of Dinamo Bucharest and Cameroon midfielder Patrick Ekeng after he collapsed during a match in the Romanian capital. The 26-year-old Ekeng fell to the ground without any contact with another player seven minutes after going on as a substitute i
The chef de mission for Australia at the 2016 Summer Olympics revealed on Saturday that Bernard Tomic and Nick Kyrgios are on watch and need to make behavioral changes on and off the tennis court if they hope to represent Australia at the Rio Olympics. Both players have been put on notice by Kitty C
Gucci America has quit the International Anti-Counterfeiting Coalition, in the second such defection in two months, to denounce a move that allowed Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba to become a member in April. Michael Kors walked out of the Washington, D.C.-based IACC last month, calling Alibaba 
U.S. President Barack Obama warned on Friday that occupying the Oval Office “is not a reality show,” in a cutting remark to outspoken Republican candidate Donald Trump who is vying to replace him in the White House. A fight with Obama would add up to the billionaire’s delight in respondi
Israel’s military said Saturday that it has struck two Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip in response to rocket fire toward the Jewish state, as the worst flare-up of violence since the 2014 war entered a fourth day. The military said sirens wailed in southern Israel early Saturday warning of an
Paris-The French Foreign Ministry confirmed on Friday that U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will attend the meeting of countries that back the Syrian opposition, which will be held in Paris next Monday. French diplomatic sources told Asharq Al-Awsat that the purpose of the meeting, which has been
Russia said that a “regime of calm” truce in the Syrian city of Aleppo and parts of Latakia province had been extended “for 72 hours beginning at 1 a.m. on Saturday” after Moscow was slammed for blocking a U.N. Security Council statement condemning the regime’s offensive in t
If the current turmoil in the Iraqi capital Baghdad contains any message, it is that the majority of Iraqis are quite fed up with the status quo. Their grievance isn’t limited to any one aspect of the nation’s life, being the difficulties of day-to-day survival or the fact that government has passed
The International Institute for Strategic Studies’ annual report revealed on Thursday that last year was a bloody one despite a drop in the number of armed conflicts. About 167,000 people died and a third of this number died in Syria alone. In the report published in London by the prominent institut
