I had planned to be gorging on sunshine and hummus in Beirut this week but instead I’m stressing about social distancing alongside an Aldi conveyer belt.

The President and Defence Minister have returned to Ireland after being evacuated from their hotel in Beirut yesterday.

The President and Defence Minister have been evacuated from their hotel in Beirut.

The Japanese kamikaze pilots of World War 2 crashed into targets, but the modern use of suicide-bombing began when a boy of 13 sacrificed himself during the Iran-Iraq war in 1980, says Frank MacGabhann.

The current Trump administration is the most hostile to immigrants in recent US history, writes Dr Piaras Mac Éinrí.

The minister for defence and his officials are being asked why they did not check — while visiting the UN General Assembly last week — that the exit paperwork for 130 Irish troops currently stranded in the Middle East was properly completed.

130 members of the Defence Forces are, for the second time in a year, unable to return home to their families tomorrow.

It seems humanly impossible not to have some sympathy for the Islamic State “brides” and their unfortunate children, many of whom are dying in refugee camps.

Hezbollah has strongly rejected the UK government's move to ban it as a terrorist organisation, calling it an "insult" to the Lebanese people and evidence of subservience to the United States.

Frank McGuinnness’s 1992 play is a remarkable feat of the imagination

An investigative judge has demanded the death penalty for the suspected killer of a British embassy worker whose body was found near Beirut two months ago, Lebanese judicial officials said.

French president Emmanuel Macron is using instability in the Middle East to cast himself in the role of honest broker and position France as Europe’s top player, says Maysam Behravesh.

Here's your morning news bulletin...

Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri has returned to Beirut more than two weeks after announcing that he had resigned from his post while in Saudi Arabia.

Lebanon's prime minister Saad Hariri has said he is returning to the country and confirmed he is resigning amid political tensions.

Saudi Arabia has ordered its citizens to leave Lebanon amid rising tensions between their two governments.

Espionage at the very heart of the government has always occurred. Johanna Lowry-O’Reilly looks at some of the more famous cases in the United Kingdom.

A request under the Freedom of Information Act has been lodged with the Department of Defence in an attempt to establish why a Naval Service ship was delayed by more than three weeks from leaving her base to save migrants in the Mediterranean Sea.

As she gets ready to present her film in Cork, Manal Issa is doing her best not to get swept up in the hype around her as one of French cinema’s brightest new stars, writes Ellie O’Byrne.

Every Sunday, the gymnasium along Beirut’s airport highway echoes with the shouting and laughter of dozens of Syrian children enjoying a rare escape from a grim and confined life in exile.

The Middle East boosted duty-free earnings at Aer Rianta International, as pre-tax profits increased 10.5% to €23.7m.

Turkish jets and artillery have struck US-backed Syrian Kurdish fighters in northern Syria, killing as many as 200 fighters, according to Turkey's state-run news agency.

Connecticut native Chantell Alford is looking forward to the start of this season’s basketball league with Team Montenotte Hotel Glanmire.

Holidaymakers looking to visit cities on the cheap can still expect to spend €120 a day in Dublin, a new global travel guide has calculated.

A contractor says he negotiated with an Australian TV network to snatch two Lebanese-Australian children from their father's family in Beirut, but the network chose a cheaper option.

Here’s a briefing on some of the stories and issues highlighted on irishexaminer.com today.

Convoys are delivering aid to three besieged communities in Syria for the second time this week to alleviate civilian suffering in cut-off areas.

Convoys are delivering aid for the second time this week to three besieged communities in Syria in an effort to alleviate civilian suffering in cut-off areas.

German foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier believes changing the way we live in fear of terrorist attacks would be giving them exactly what they wanted

A photograph of Abdul Halim al-Attar seliing pens while holding his sleeping daughter went viral last summer.

Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump said his plan for combating IS militants involves targeting not just the group’s fighters but also their families.

Russia and Iran may need to join a ‘coalition of the willing’ so they can work with the West and finally rid the world of the scourge of Islamic State, writes Richard N. Haass