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Study reveals 'huge scale and impact' of Israeli incursions over Lebanon

A study documenting at least 22,000 Israeli overflights in Lebanon’s skies over the past 15 years has revealed the “huge scale and impact of Israeli incursions over Lebanon” as well as the “psychological effect on the country,” British newspaper The Guardian reported on Thursday.

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No way out as Iraq's dangerous post-election impasse deepens

Eight months after national elections, Iraq still doesn't have a government and there seems to be no clear way out of the dangerous deadlock.

Political elites are embroiled in cutthroat competition for power, even as the country faces growing challenges, including an impending food crisis resulting from severe drought and the war in Ukraine.

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Which Conservatives could succeed UK's Johnson if he falls?

With British Prime Minister Boris Johnson dealt a heavy blow after surviving a no-confidence vote from his own Conservative Party, questions already are being asked about who might succeed him if he was forced from office.

Conservative lawmakers voted 211-148 to keep Johnson as leader Monday following revelations that he and his staff held Downing Street parties that broke Britain's COVID-19 lockdown rules. But the scale of the revolt was considered more damaging than expected.

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Turkey aid lifeline to war-torn Syria hangs by a thread

Trucks loaded with humanitarian aid queue bumper-to-bumper amid the olive groves at the Turkish-Syrian border, waiting to be allowed across into war-torn Syria.

Inside are baby nappies and blankets, but also 15-kilo (33-pound) bags of flour, bulghur wheat, sugar, chickpeas and peanut-based pastes for children suffering from malnutrition.

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Israeli nationalists wage battle against Palestinian flag

It's not a bomb or a gun or a rocket. The latest threat identified by Israel is the Palestinian flag.

Recent weeks have seen a furor by nationalists over the waving of the red, white, green and black flag by Palestinians in Israel and in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem.

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What is behind Turkey's Syria incursion threats?

In northern Syria, residents are bracing for a new fight. With the world's attention focused on the war in Ukraine, Turkey's leader says he's planning a major military operation to push back Syrian Kurdish fighters and create a long sought-after buffer zone in the border area.

Tensions are high. Hardly a day passes by without an exchange of fire and shelling between the U.S.-backed Syrian Kurdish fighters, and Turkish forces and Turkey-backed Syrian opposition gunmen.

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'Battle of flags' flares in Israel-Palestinian conflict

Dozens of Israeli soldiers stood guard in the occupied West Bank town of Huwara, where the Palestinian flag was blowing in the warm breeze from an electricity pole.

Suddenly, a Jewish settler jumped from a car, hoisted himself up the pole and tore down the flag, to the fury of Palestinian onlookers. 

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Divided again, Libya slides back toward violence, chaos

For many Libyans, clashes that erupted in the capital of Tripoli last month were all too familiar — a deja vu of street fighting, reverberating gunfire and people cowering inside their homes. A video circulated online on the day, showing a man shouting from a mosque loudspeaker "Enough war, we want our young generation!"

The fighting underscored the fragility of Libya's relative peace that has prevailed for more than a year but it also looked like history was repeating itself. Now, observers say that momentum to reunify the country has been lost and that its future is looking grim.

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Lebanon's Speaker Nabih Berri, undefeated guardian of status quo

Skillfully riding decades of turbulence and shifting political tides, Nabih Berri is returning for a seventh consecutive term as speaker of Lebanon's parliament, despite growing popular demands for fresh faces.

At 84, he is one of the world's longest serving legislative chiefs, having held his post for the past 30 years, a feat no other Lebanese politician has accomplished.

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Lebanon's nascent reform movement faces tough road

Ramy Finge spent two years braving tear gas and rubber bullets, sometimes trying to scale the cement walls surrounding Lebanon's parliament during anti-government protests.

Soon he'll be able to walk in through the front door. The dentist from the northern city of Tripoli is among 13 independent newcomers who won seats in parliament in May 15 elections, building on the protest movement seeking to break the long domination by traditional parties.

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