Category: 2. Middle East

Pope Francis, an energetic reformer who inspired widespread devotion from Catholics but riled traditionalists, died on Monday aged 88, just a day after greeting delighted worshippers after Easter Mass.

The death of the Argentine pontiff, leader of the Catholic Church since March 2013, came less than a month after having been released from hospital following a 38-day battle with double pneumonia.

Some visitors to St Peters Square — where a frail-looking Francis was cheered by Easter Sunday…

Pope Francis died on Monday aged 88, prompting mourning across the Christian world for the energetic reformer who inspired devotion from Catholics but riled traditionalists during a 12-year papacy.

Mourners gathered, many in tears, in St Peter’s Square, where just a day earlier the the frail-looking pontiff had greeted worshippers on Easter Sunday, having recently left hospital following a 38-day battle with double pneumonia.

World leaders paid tribute to Francis’ moral and spiritual…

Leaders across the Middle East region paid tribute to Pope Francis, who died on Monday at the age of 88, Anadolu news agency reported.

Pope Francis, who made history as the first Jesuit and first Latin American pontiff, died after battling an illness described by Vatican officials as a “prolonged asthma-like respiratory crisis” associated with thrombocytopenia.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi mourned the pontiff, describing him as “an exceptional…

US warplanes carried out a wave of air strikes on Yemen’s capital late Sunday in the latest round of near-daily attacks since the Trump administration announced a major military offensive against the Houthi group in March.

The Houthi-affiliated Al-Masirah TV channel said on X that the strikes targeted the Faj Attan area in Ma’een District of Sanaa in two raids, followed by an attack on a sanitation project in the Asr area of the district. It said additional…

In a major step toward financial modernisation and regional integration, Mauritania and Morocco have signed a landmark agreement to establish the country’s first stock exchange in Nouakchott.

The deal, signed on Thursday between the Central Bank of Mauritania (BCM) and the Casablanca Stock Exchange, underscores growing South-South cooperation and deepening economic ties between the two Maghreb neighbours.

The agreement, formalised in the presence of Moroccan…

Pope Francis died at age 88 after suffering a prolonged illness, the Vatican announced on Monday.

He suffered a “prolonged asthma-like respiratory crisis” associated with thrombocytopenia, according to a previous Vatican statement.

Francis was born in Buenos Aires on 17 December 1936, to Italian immigrant parents.

He studied in Argentina and later in Germany before being ordained as a Jesuit priest in 1969.

Over a decade into his papacy, Pope Francis…

Kuwait’s Court of Cassation, the country’s highest judicial body in the country, has issued a four-year prison sentence against former MP Walid Al-Tabtabaei, over challenging the Emir’s powers, Kuwaiti media reported.

According to media reports, the court found Al-Tabtabaei guilty of insulting the Emir, Sheikh Meshal Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah, in social media posts, over his decision last year to suspend certain articles of the constitution, dissolve the National…

LONDON: He preferred to be called “Father” rather than “Your Holiness,” and in his simple white cassock, Pope Francis carried a message of humility far beyond Vatican walls. He washed the feet of migrants, embraced the poor and forsaken, and reminded the world that true power lies in service — not ceremony.

From the barrios of…