Category: 2. Middle East

WASHINGTON – The White House on Tuesday publicly confirmed President Donald Trump will visit Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates next month on the first foreign trip of his second term.

Trump’s visit to the Gulf countries will span May 13-16, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters during a briefing. 

Why it matters: The upcoming visit comes as the Trump administration pursues a diplomatic reset with Iran over its nuclear program. US officials have sent

US President Donald Trump on Tuesday said he had spoken with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and that they were united on issues including trade and Iran.

“The call went very well — We are on the same side of every issue,” Trump said on his social media platform.

The United States and Iran launched talks this month on Tehran’s nuclear program, first in Oman and then in Rome, and these discussions are due to resume this week.

Trump told reporters Monday his administration had had good…

Israeli police have been searching for a man reported missing following a suspected shark attack off the country’s Mediterranean coast, the force said on Tuesday.

Shark attacks have not been reported in Israel for decades.

Police spokesman Aryeh Doron said that “several findings have been sent for examination”, without specifying the nature of the recovered evidence.

Search operations continued Tuesday in the southeastern Mediterranean, near the area of the central city of Hadera where the…

Harvard University filed a lawsuit against the administration of the US President Donald Trump on Monday, marking a significant escalation in ongoing tensions between the Ivy League institution and the Republican leader, who has repeatedly threatened its federal funding and pushed for political oversight of its internal affairs.

The lawsuit, submitted in federal court in Massachusetts, argues that the federal government is unlawfully attempting to use funding as…

WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Marco Rubio has announced an overhaul of the State Department’s workforce that would see the closure or consolidation of several human rights-related offices he described as part of the department’s “sprawling bureaucracy.” 

The State Department in its current form is “bloated” and “bureaucratic,” Rubio said in a statement Tuesday. 

“Over the past 15 years, the Department’s footprint has had unprecedented growth and costs have soared,”…

The Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, Archbishop Pierbattista Pizzaballa, on Tuesday hailed Pope Francis’s support for Gazans and engagement with the small Catholic community in the war-battered Palestinian territory.

The Catholic church’s highest authority in the region, who is considered a potential successor to the late pontiff, Pizzaballa told journalists in Jerusalem that “Gaza represents, a little bit, all what was the heart of his pontificate”.

Pope Francis, who died on Monday aged 88,…

Dozens of former Israeli female soldiers staged a protest yesterday evening outside the Ministry of Defence in Tel Aviv, calling for the release of occupation soldier Matan Angrest, who has been held in Gaza since 7 October 2023, Anadolu reported.

According to the Hebrew-language daily Maariv, 70 former female soldiers gathered in what is known as the “Hostages’ Square” in Tel Aviv, accompanied by members of Angrest’s family. From there, they marched…