Gun battles have erupted again in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli, with gunmen firing automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades. At least three people were killed in clashes overnight linked to the civil war in neighbouring Syria, Lebanese police sources said. Two gunmen...

Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed into law the treaty formally making Crimea part of the Russian Federation, after it was approved by the parliament, on the same day Ukraine capped a landmark alliance with the European Union. All 155 senators present...

Sardar Ahmad, a staff reporter at AFP, has been killed in a Taliban attack on Kabul's Serena hotel. Ahmad, 40, was shot dead along with his wife and two of his three children when four teenage gunmen attacked the hotel on Thursday evening. Hired in 2003 to cover daily briefings by the...

Taliban gunmen killed nine people, including four foreigners, in an attack on a luxury hotel used by U.N. staff and prominent Afghan politicians in Kabul on Thursday night, before being shot dead by security forces, witnesses and police said on Friday. The assault on the heavily...