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An Iranian tanker caught in a stand-off between Tehran and the West has raised an Iranian flag and has had a new name painted on its side, Reuters images of the stationary vessel filmed off Gibraltar showed on Sunday. British Royal Marines seized the vessel in Gibraltar in July on suspicion that it was carrying oil to Syria, a close ally of Iran, in violation of European Union sanctions. Video footage and photographs showed the tanker flying the red, green and white flag of Iran and bearing the new name of 'Adrian Darya-1' painted in white on its hull. Its previous name, 'Grace 1,' had been painted over. The vessel's anchor was still down. The Grace 1 had originally flown the Panamian flag but

An eight-month-old dugong that became a social media star in Thailand has died of what biologists believe was a combination of shock and ingesting plastic waste. The female dugong - a large ocean mammal - was named "Marium", which means "lady of the sea", and was nurtured by marine experts after she was found orphaned on a beach in the south of the country in April. The young creature became an internet hit after images of biologists embracing and feeding her with milk and grass spread across social media. She was dubbed the "nation's sweetheart" by Thailand's Department of Marine and Coastal Resources (DMCR). Veterinarians and volunteers had set out in canoes to feed Marium for up to 15 times

Saudi Minister of Transport and Chairman of the General Authority of Civil Aviation (GACA), Dr. Nabeel Al-Amoudi, oversaw the departure of the first  group of pilgrims under the Eyab initiative on Saturday together with GACA President Abdulhadi bin Ahmed Al-Mansouri. Eyab seeks to improve services provided to pilgrims, with the authority aiming to enrich pilgrims' experience at the Kingdom's airports. It is expected to benefit 30,000 pilgrims during this year's Hajj season. Al-Amoudi toured the exhibition dedicated to welcome Eyab's beneficiaries, inspected the services available and received a briefing from the initiative's officials. GACA started an experimental implementation of Eyab this

Gibraltar has refused a request by the United States to seize an Iranian oil tanker at the centre of a diplomatic standoff between Tehran and Europe.  British Royal Marines had seized the vessel in Gibraltar in July on suspicion that it was carrying oil to Syria, a close ally of Iran, in violation of European Union sanctions. That detention ended last week, but on Friday a US court issued a warrant for the seizure of the tanker, on the grounds that it had links to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which Washington has designated a "terrorist" organisation. Gibraltar's government said on Sunday it could not comply with the US request because of European law. "The Central Authority's

Iranian Foreign Ministry officials, representatives of four European countries and representatives of the Iranian-backed Houthi militia held a trilateral meeting on Saturday in Tehran, the official Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) reported. The meeting - held at the Iranian Foreign Ministry's building - was attended by Ali Asghar Khaji, a senior assistant to Iran's Foreign Minister in special political affairs, a Houthi delegation headed by the movement's spokesman Mohammad Abdul Salam, and the ambassadors of Britain, France, Germany and Italy.

In November 2017 at Christie's New York, Alex Rotter uttered a phrase never before heard at an art auction: "Four hundred million." His bid was in dollars, and the lot in question was the last known Leonardo da Vinci painting in private hands. Audible gasps gave way to applause, and, less than a minute later, the gavel fell to make history. After fees, the "Salvator Mundi" sold for $450.3 million, obliterating auction records for a work of art. But it wasn't Rotter who made the world-famous purchase -- it was the anonymous bidder on the end of his telephone line. In fact, he was just as surprised as anyone. "I thought when we reached $200 million it would end," he recalled to CNN on the phone.

A suicide-bomb blast ripped through a wedding party on a busy Saturday night in Afghanistan's capital, killing 63 people and wounding 182 others, a government official said. The Taliban denied responsibility for the blast at a west Kabul wedding hall. “Among the wounded are women and children,” Interior Ministry spokesman Nusrat Rahimi said. Rahimi told The Associated Press the attacker set off explosives among the wedding participants.