Middle East News

The global industry for halal food and lifestyle products -- ones that meet Islamic law standards of manufacture -- is estimated to be worth hundreds of billions of dollars and is multiplying as Muslim populations grow.

Officials say censors in Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar will ban the release of "Noah," the upcoming big-budget Hollywood film featuring Russell Crowe as the ark-building prophet.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova and the joint U.N.-Arab League mediator on Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, issued a joint statement citing "alarming reports" that Syria's heritage is being deliberately targeted for ideological reasons.

The Israeli military said it was the largest rocket barrage since 2012, when it launched an eight-day air campaign in Gaza it said was aimed at stopping the attacks.

Iran and Russia have discussed a draft agreement to build at least two nuclear power stations in the Islamic Republic, Iran's official news agency reported.

Vin Diesel and other members of the "Fast & Furious 7" cast are heading to the Mideast city of Abu Dhabi after months of uncertainty about the fate of the film.

In this Sunday, Jan. 5, 2014 file photo, Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah speaks with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry before their meeting in Rawdat Khurayim, a secluded royal hunting retreat in Saudi Arabia.

David Cameron has arrived in Israel on his first visit as Prime Minister, vowing to add his weight to a US-led effort to rekindle the Middle East peace process.

DAMASCUS, Syria - In a rare public appearance, President Bashar Assad on Wednesday visited displaced Syrians in a frontline suburb of the country's capital, where he vowed to keep up the fight against gunmen whom he blamed for driving people from their homes, state TV said.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani is visiting nearby Oman on his first trip to an Arab country since taking office last year.

Voters in a deeply divided Israeli city have returned an ultra-Orthodox mayor to his post after he narrowly defeated a secular challenger in a repeat vote held following fraud allegations.

Three suicide bombers detonated their explosives belts in a local administration building in a Kurdish town in northeastern Syria Tuesday, killing at least five people, the state-run news agency and a Kurdish official said.

HEBRON HILLS, West Bank a?? Preparing his jeep for the short drive into the West Bank city of Hebron, where tensions between Palestinians and Israeli settlers often flare, Nabeel Sabbagh looked like every other Israeli Border Policeman serving at this hilltop base.

Riot police fired tear gas, water cannons and rubber bullets to disperse anti-government protesters hurling stones and bottles in central Ankara, the capital, and Istanbul, the largest city.

Hamas military wing members take part in a ceremony to inaugurate a monument marking the anniversary of the death of a senior Hamas official Ibrahim Maqadama, killed in an Israeli air strike in 2003, in Gaza City , Monday, March 10, 2014.

The official news agency of the United Arab Emirates says Egypt's military chief, Field Marshal Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, is in the country attending the closing ceremony of joint military exercises.

Israel expressed regret Tuesday over the killing of a Palestinian judge from Jordan, who was shot by Israeli soldiers at a border crossing, and promised Amman that it would carry out a joint investigation into his death.

On Monday, one Saudi man was sentenced to 10 years in prison for using Twitter to encourage protests and undermine the country's leadership, according to Saudi Arabian state news agency SPA.

Most of those a" 2.3 million Syrian children who should be in classes a" remain within Syria's borders, as education and health services collapse and classrooms are bombed or used as shelters and military barracks, UNICEF said in a new report that shows the tragically expanding effects of a conflict on the region's youngest victims.

The government faces a months-long crisis in Anbar province, where it has lost the city of Fallujah as well as shifting parts of provincial capital Ramadi to anti-government militants.