Qatar became the first Middle Eastern country Wednesday to receive Chinese giant pandas -- Suhail and Soraya -- who, in true Gulf fashion, took up residence in luxury air-conditioned quarters.
Crowds of children and reporters watched as the four-year-old male and three-year-old female took their first steps in a temporary enclosure in a ceremony at the Al Khor park about 50 kilometres (30 miles) north of Doha.
Palestinian movement Hamas on Wednesday said it restored relations with the Syrian government after a visiting delegation held a "historic meeting" with President Bashar al-Assad in Damascus.
The Islamist group, which controls the Gaza Strip, was long one of Syria's closest allies, in large part due to a shared enmity towards Israel.
But it left Syria in 2012 after condemning the Assad government's brutal suppression of protests in March 2011, which triggered the country's descent into civil war.
After a bitter split from her footballer ex Gerard Pique, Colombian superstar Shakira is back with a vengeance.
First she released a diss track that nearly broke YouTube and on Monday she struck a deal with Spanish authorities to avoid the embarrassment of a tax fraud trial related to her years in Barcelona with Pique.
The legal woes of the woman dubbed the queen of Latin music since her 2005 smash hit "Hips Don't Lie" are not yet at an end, with a second Spanish investigation into alleged tax evasion still hanging over her.
A US citizen jailed in Saudi Arabia is being punished for "mild" Twitter posts on topics including the war in Yemen and the 2018 killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, his son told AFP on Wednesday.
Saad Ibrahim Almadi, a 72-year-old of Saudi origin, was this month sentenced to 16 years in prison, the latest in a spate of what human rights groups describe as draconian sentences for social media criticism of the government.
An Iranian climber who caused a sensation by competing abroad without a hijab was given a hero's welcome on her return to Tehran Wednesday by supporters who raucously applauded her action.
With Iran still shaken by women-led protests over the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini one month ago, after her arrest for allegedly violating the country's strict dress code for women, Elnaz Rekabi returned following the competition in South Korea.
A cheering crowd welcomed home Iranian sports climber Elnaz Rekabi at a Tehran airport Wednesday, after she competed in South Korea without a hijab, media in the Islamic republic reported.
Rekabi wore only a headband during the Asian Championships in Seoul on Sunday, in what was seen by some a gesture of solidarity with month-long protests in Iran over the death of Mahsa Amini after her arrest for allegedly violating the Islamic dress rules.
After losing four relatives to respiratory illness, Zeina Matar fled her hometown north of Lebanon's capital where she says a decaying power plant generates little electricity but very deadly pollution.
Thick black smoke sometimes billows from its red-and-white chimneys, leaving a grey haze in the air above the Zouk Mikael industrial district where the toxins remain trapped by a nearby mountain chain.
Zeina, aged 40, says she lost her younger sister and a cousin to pulmonary fibrosis and that two of her uncles died of lung cancer years earlier.
Just a year into her marriage, Manal became one of the tens of thousands of Iraqis every year who divorce in a deeply conservative nation where break-up rates have risen.
For Manal, like many other women, the reason was clear -- her husband's financial dependence on his family's business meant that "he couldn't take any decisions of his own".
The 33-year-old was divorced eight years ago from her ex-husband, who is also her cousin and who worked for his father's appliance shop.
The bill being paid by Qatar for the most expensive World Cup ever held is set to rise to fantasy levels in the one month left to the November 20 kickoff.
Gleaming new stadiums that cost more than $6.5 billion are ready, a driver-less metro system with a price tag of $36 billion serves five of the eight venues.
The palm tree-styled street lamps and neon office blocks that line the highway from the expanded international airport to central Doha will be an instant sign to the million-plus incoming fans that the first World Cup in an Arab nation is going to be a glitzy affair.
The United States said Tuesday it was raising with Saudi Arabia a prison sentence handed to a US citizen over tweets critical of the kingdom, another source of tension between the historic allies.
The State Department confirmed the detention of Saad Ibrahim Almadi, a US citizen of Saudi origin, and said the United States brought up his case starting in December and as recently as Monday.
Almadi was sentenced to 16 years in prison for the tweets, his son Ibrahim confirmed to AFP.
