WASHINGTON: The White House confirmed on Monday that Ben Rhodes, the deputy national security adviser, would not testify at a House oversight panel on Iran on Tuesday. The panel had asked Rhodes to appear after a New York Times article had suggested that he had manipulated the public debate...

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will visit Cairo Wednesday for talks with President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi, amid a stark crackdown on political freedoms in Egypt. State Department spokesman Mark Toner said Kerry would fly to Cairo after talks on the Syrian crisis in Vienna and before heading...

 Islamic State efforts to exploit chaos may have brought Saudi-backed forces and Iran-allied Houthis tentatively closer at peace talks in Yemen's civil war, but a deal seems unlikely in time to avert collapse into armed, feuding statelets. Ferocious conflict along Yemen's northern border...

Libya's U.N.-established presidency council has effectively given the go-ahead for 18 government ministers to start work, even though they have not received backing from the parliament based in the country's east. Monday's development is an effort to bypass a political deadlock that continues...