A 13-year-old boy has been killed by a shark while surfing off the French island of Reunion. Witnesses watched in horror as Elio Canestri was knocked off his board and had arms and legs as well as part of his stomach torn off by the shark in the attack. “It is horrific,” a witness to the attack told a local ...

The Kuwaiti parliament is considering keeping Kuwait Airways in state hands by reducing the proportion of shares its impending sale to 25 percent. The debt-riddled airline is already be prepped for privatisation under legislation passed five years’ ago. Under that plan, the state would retain only 20 percent of the airline, with 40 percent allocated to each citizens and investors. ...

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said the Baghdad government would work with Kurdish authorities to liberate the northern province of Nineveh from Islamic State militants. During his first visit to the Kurdistan region since becoming Prime Minister last year, Abadi said Baghdad and Erbil faced a common enemy and would improve ties to help confront the threat. “Our visit to ...

Twenty-eight men and women have been fined or jailed for attending an alcohol-fueled sex party on a Dubai yacht. The Court of Misdemeanors sentenced two men and three women to one year each in prison for having sex outside of marriage, theKhaleej Times reported. According to the 7 Days newspaper, the two men were policemen. All defendants were fined 2,000 dirhams ($550) each for “getting ...

A Jordanian pilot and an Iraqi trainee were killed when a light training aircraft crashed during a routine military exercise on Monday, the Jordanian army said. A T67 “Firefly aircraft crashed Monday morning, killing a Jordanian lieutenant colonel and his Iraqi trainee, during a routine training exercise” said Col. Mamdouh al-Amiri, a military spokesman. He said the crash occurred over ...

Israel has cut back lumber shipments to the Gaza Strip, Palestinian importers said Monday, adding to restrictions that could hamper housing reconstruction after last summer’s war. Israeli authorities overseeing the transfer of goods to the Hamas-run enclave were not immediately available to comment. Israel tightly controls the transfer of construction material to Gaza, saying Hamas could use it to rebuild military infrastructure. Palestinian ...

A nuclear agreement between Iran and world powers will strengthen Tehran’s role in the region and rules out the specter of a regional war, Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah said Monday. “There is no doubt that the Iranian nuclear deal will be big and important to the region,” Nasrallah said in a live interview with Syria’s Al-Ekhbariya TV. “The agreement, God willing, rules out the specter ...

Oil prices jumped more than 5 percent on Monday as traders reassessed how quickly Iran might increase exports after a preliminary nuclear deal and anticipated that a months-long rise in U.S. crude inventories may be slowing. Brent crude’s rally followed Thursday’s nearly 4 percent tumble after Iran and six world powers announced a framework agreement on the OPEC member’s nuclear program. But initial expectations of a ...

Lebanon’s agricultural future is under imminent danger due to the shortage of Syrian laborers who cultivate and harvest the crops, farmers warned Monday. They added that the General Security Directorate’s decision in December 2014 to restrict the entry of Syrians to Lebanon has had a devastating effect on farming. According to the farmers, the number of laborers working in the fields in ...

Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan on Monday signed an initial agreement on sharing water from the Nile River that runs through the three countries, as Addis Ababa presses ahead with its construction of a massive new dam it hopes will help alleviate the country’s power shortages. The dam had been an issue of contention among the three countries, with Egypt concerned it would reduce its ...