Civilian rescue vessel Sea Watch 3, which was detained in Sicily on Friday, is the latest in a long list of such ships that have been forced or have chosen to stop their work.

Currently only the Libyan coastguard is able to save those migrants floundering in their attempts to reach Europe across the central Mediterranean. 

Pope Francis is set for a historic trip to the UAE, the first ever papal visit to the Arabian Peninsula, as he seeks to boost the Vatican's outreach to Islam.

The Republican leader of the US Senate, Mitch McConnell, has delivered a rare rebuke of Donald Trump in legislation Thursday that questions the president's decision to pull US troops out of Syria.

The amendment to a broader Middle East Policy bill easily passed a preliminary procedural vote Thursday 68 to 23, with substantial support from both Democrats and Republicans.

Yemen's government and its allies Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates asked the UN Security Council on Thursday to turn up the pressure on Huthi rebels to uphold a ceasefire deal. 

In a letter sent to the council, the three governments accused the Huthis of violating the ceasefire in the port city of Hodeida 970 times since it came into force on December 18.

The U.N. Security Council has endorsed the appointment of former Danish general Michael Lollesgaard to head the U.N. observer mission in war-wracked Yemen, diplomats said.

Top diplomats from Saudi Arabia and its allies wrapped up two days of talks in Jordan's Dead Sea resort on Thursday on coordinating policy on the multiple conflicts gripping the region.

The closed-door meetings were a "consultation between brothers and friends", Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said in a terse statement shortly after they ended.

Saudi Arabia announced Wednesday the end of a high-profile anti-corruption probe that boosted the state coffers by more than $100 billion and has left dozens detained.

The U.N. humanitarian chief urged Syria's warring parties on Wednesday to ensure the delivery of desperately needed aid to Syrians stranded near the border with Jordan and warned again that a major military operation in extremist-controlled Idlib would be a humanitarian catastrophe.

Mark Lowcock said the U.N. wants an aid convoy, with more than 100 trucks accompanied by some 250 U.N. and Syrian Arab Red Crescent personnel, to leave for the isolated Rukban camp on the Syria-Jordan border by Feb. 5. Its 42,000 people "remain stranded in deteriorating conditions since the last convoy to the area in early November," which was the first since January 2018, he said.

Yemeni medics scrambled to save a 20-year-old woman after a sniper's bullet tore a gash in her scalp in the port city of Hodeida, where a fragile ceasefire has brought limited respite to war-weary civilians.

Outside a camp for the displaced in northwest Syria, 15-year-old Sabaa al-Jassim hacked away at a mountain of trash hoping to find scraps to sell for food.

Using a hooked metal rod, he stabbed at acrid household waste in the village of Kafr Lusin, looking for plastic to trade for a few dollars to feed his 11-member family.