Abu Haidar tries to keep a low profile and there is no sign on his shop, the first liquor store to reopen in Mosul since the jihadists were beaten back.

But it's hard not to notice the steady stream of customers walking out with black plastic bags filled with Turkish beer, Iraqi arak liquor and cheap whisky.

A weekend seminar in Beirut to promote LGBT rights has been cancelled after "threats" from religious figures, its organizers said on Monday.

"Three, two, one, action!" shouts Syrian refugee Mostafa Abdallah, 11, energetically directing his fellow child actors in a musical being filmed in a Palestinian camp in the Lebanese capital.

Thousands of police on alert, border controls tightened, anti-drone measures: Portugal is taking no chances with security ahead of a pilgrimage by Pope Francis to the famous shrine of Fatima.

Yemen's war has claimed thousands of lives and pushed millions to the brink of famine. Now the conflict threatens to erase a unique part of the country's ancient history.

A United Nations rights official ended a groundbreaking visit to North Korea Monday and urged officials to try to combat the stigma and pejorative language surrounding the disabled.

British street artist Banksy has created his first mural inspired by Brexit, showing a workman chipping away at one of the stars on the European Union flag.

Israeli ministers approved a controversial bill on Sunday that would define the country as the "national home of the Jewish people" while downgrading Arabic as an official language, officials and reports said.

A former radical preacher is the unlikely instigator of a debate on a topic long seen as off-limits in Muslim-majority Morocco: women's inheritance rights.

Ten countries including Russia, Turkey and India have been condemned for censoring, locking up or threatening cartoonists in a new report published Friday.