(Reuters) - A Gaza ceasefire crumbled only hours after it began on Friday, with at least 40 Palestinians killed by Israeli shelling and Israel accusing militants of violating the U.S.- and U.N.-brokered truce by firing rockets and mortars. The 72-hour break announced by...

A Sudanese Christian woman who was sentenced to death for renouncing Islam then acquitted after international pressure on Khartoum, on Thursday left Italy for the United States with her family. Meriam Ibrahim Tehya Ishag, who met Pope Francis during her eight-day stopover in Italy,...

The U.N. Security Council is condemning the offensive waged by the extremist Islamic State group and allied militants in Iraq, calling it "a major threat" to the country's future. The council stressed in a resolution adopted unanimously Wednesday extending the U.N. political...

(Reuters) - Iraqi Shi'ite militias have drawn up hit lists of suspected Sunni insurgents to be kidnapped, executed and hung in public, security and police officials said, raising the stakes in a sectarian war tearing the country apart. The militias became a vital line of...