Israelis vote on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s political survival in a fourth election in two years, with the veteran leader hoping his role in a rapid Covid-19 vaccine campaign will win him another term.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday that Saudi Arabia is seeking to buy armed unmanned aerial vehicles from Turkey, after years of tension between the two regional powers.

Iran has started enriching uranium at its underground Natanz plant with a second type of advanced centrifuge, the IR-4, the UN nuclear watchdog said in a report reviewed by Reuters, in a further breach of Tehran’s deal with major powers.

Human Rights Watch said yesterday that “unidentified projectiles” launched by Yemen’s Huthi rebels caused a March 7 blaze that killed dozens of migrants at a holding facility in the capital.

Protesters burned tyres and blocked roads in Beirut today as the Lebanese currency crashed past a new milestone.

Iranian authorities have charged French tourist Benjamin Briere, arrested 10 months ago, with espionage and “propaganda against the system”, one of his lawyers told Reuters.

The overall death toll for Syria’s civil war has reached 388,652 since it began a decade ago this month, a war monitor said yesterday.

Turkey and Egypt have had their first diplomatic contacts since breaking off relations in 2013, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said yesterday.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will visit the United Arab Emirates on Thursday and may meet the Saudi crown prince there in an opportunity to showcase new Gulf ties before a closely contested election in Israel, its public broadcaster Kan said.

Syrian President Bashar Assad and his wife have tested positive for the coronavirus, the president’s office said Monday, with both having only mild symptoms of the illness.

The United States will do what it sees as necessary to defend its interests after a rocket attack last week against Iraq’s Ain al-Sada airbase, which hosts American, coalition and Iraqi forces, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said.

The Iraq meeting of Pope Francis and Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, one of Shia Islam’s top clerics, was front-page news in Iran yesterday, with some media declaring it a chance for peace in the neighbouring country.

Iran has released British-Iranian aid worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, her lawyer Hojjat Kermani told Iranian website Emtedad today, after her five-year prison sentence for plotting to overthrow the clerical establishment.

Bangladesh has strongly condemned the drone attacks targeting the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia by the Houthi rebels on February 10 and 17.

Missile strikes on makeshift oil refineries in northern Syria killed four people and injured more than 20 others, a war monitor said yesterday.

A haven for humans craving furry feline company, a cat cafe in Dubai also doubles as an adoption centre for some of the United Arab Emirates’ many strays.

The fiancée of slain Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi called on Monday for Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to be punished after a US intelligence report found he had approved the killing.

The Biden administration announced sanctions and visa bans on Friday targeting Saudi Arabian citizens over the 2018 killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, but stopped short of imposing sanctions on Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman himself.

A secretive Israeli nuclear facility at the center of the nation’s undeclared atomic weapons program is undergoing what appears to be its biggest construction project in decades, satellite photos analyzed by The Associated Press show.

The United States will seek to strengthen and extend the agreement between world powers and Iran aimed at curbing its nuclear programme, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said.