This Is Beirut 2024-06-26 00:05 - Reading : 1 minute(s)
Ukraine and Russia have exchanged 90 prisoners of war each in the biggest swap between the two warring sides in almost five months, officials said Tuesday. Moscow and Kyiv have carried out over 50 prisoner exchanges since Russia invaded Ukraine more than two years ago, despite ongoing hostilities and both sides accusing each other of derailing ...
This Is Beirut 2024-06-25 18:56 - Reading : 2 minute(s)
The United States unveiled sweeping sanctions Tuesday against almost 50 individuals and companies it says were part of a "shadow banking" network that moved billions of dollars for Iran's military. The sanctions target a network of Iranian exchange houses and foreign firms that enabled Iran's defense ministry and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps ...
This Is Beirut 2024-06-25 13:53 - Reading : 2 minute(s)
Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Tuesday called for "high participation" in Friday's presidential election to replace Ebrahim Raisi, who died last month in a helicopter crash. "We emphasise the importance of high participation (in the election) because it is the pride of the Islamic Republic," Khamenei declared in a televised ...
This Is Beirut 2024-06-25 10:29 - Reading : 2 minute(s)
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange landed on US soil on Wednesday to face a final court hearing under a plea deal expected to end years of legal drama and allow him to return to his native Australia as a free man. AFP reporters saw a private jet carrying the 52-year-old touch down in Saipan in the Northern Mariana Islands, the Pacific US territory ...
This Is Beirut 2024-06-25 10:29 - Reading : 4 minute(s)
European Union Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky
The European Union formally launches accession negotiations with Ukraine and Moldova on Tuesday, setting the fragile ex-Soviet states off on a long path towards membership that Russia has tried to block. The landmark move is aimed in particular at sending a vote of confidence in Ukraine's future as Moscow has momentum on the battlefield almost ...
This Is Beirut 2024-06-24 22:02 - Reading : 2 minute(s)
President Emmanuel Macron on Monday warned that the policies of his far-right and hard-left opponents could lead to "civil war" as France prepared for its most divisive election in decades. French politics were plunged into turmoil by Macron calling snap legislative elections after his centrist party was trounced by the far-right National Rally ...
This Is Beirut 2024-06-24 21:52 - Reading : 2 minute(s)
The EU on Monday agreed to start paying out a first chunk of funds worth 1.4 billion euros ($1.5 billion) earned from Russian frozen assets to help arm Ukraine, bypassing blockages from Hungary. The money is part of roughly three billion euros a year in interest from immobilized Russian central bank funds that the EU agreed to use for Kyiv in ...
This Is Beirut 2024-06-24 20:37 - Reading : 2 minute(s)
The World Bank has approved a $700 million loan to help Egypt boost private sector participation in its economy, which has suffered from the fallout of the Israel-Gaza conflict, the organization said on Monday. The program is designed to help address short-term economic challenges, "unleash private sector growth," build macroeconomic and fiscal ...
This Is Beirut 2024-06-24 13:44 - Reading : 4 minute(s)
Iranians broadly deplore Western sanctions that battered the economy, but the country's six presidential candidates offer differing solutions – assuming the winner gets a say on foreign policy. Punishing US sanctions, reimposed following Washington's withdrawal from a landmark 2015 nuclear deal, have brought years of economic hardships, ...
This Is Beirut 2024-06-24 13:14 - Reading : 1 minute(s)
Iran and Bahrain have agreed to launch negotiations on how to restore diplomatic relations that have been severed for nearly eight years, the Iranian Foreign Ministry said on Monday. Tiny Gulf monarchy Bahrain cut ties with Iran in 2016, following in the footsteps of regional powerhouse Saudi Arabia after Riyadh's diplomatic missions in Iran were ...
This Is Beirut 2024-06-24 09:41 - Reading : 3 minute(s)
Gunmen attacked churches and synagogues in Russia's North Caucasus region of Dagestan on Sunday, killing at least 15 police and national guard officers and a priest, officials said. The unidentified gunmen launched simultaneous attacks in Dagestan's largest city of Makhachkala and in the coastal city of Derbent. Russia's Investigative Committee ...
2024-06-24 08:52 - Reading : 4 minute(s)
The G7 summit is a manifest success. The Western powers and their circumstantial partners have demonstrated their ability to engage crucial strategic and security issues, outmaneuver the emerging monolithic blocs, and confront the rising totalitarianism and its incipient power architecture. The invitation of Pope Francis, as a religious leader, a ...