MOSCOW -- Russian President Vladimir Putin has spoken with his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, on the phone, the Kremlin reported. A terse readout published Friday on the Kremlin’s website said the two discussed “the situation around Ukraine,” including a deal mediated by Turkey...

Turkish authorities on Friday said preliminary work has started to build housing for people left homeless by the massive earthquake that hit parts of the country and neighboring Syria, killing tens of thousands. Murat Kurum, the minister for the environment, urbanization and climate change,...

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine’s president pledged to push for victory in 2023 as he and other Ukrainians on Friday marked the somber first anniversary of the Russian invasion that changed their lives. As dawn broke on a day of commemorations and defiance, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy tweeted...

Russia and China showcased their deepening ties Wednesday in meetings others are watching for signs that Beijing might offer the Kremlin stronger support for its war in Ukraine. The visit by Wang Yi, the Chinese Communist Party's most senior foreign policy official, to Moscow comes as the...

Israeli troops killed 11 Palestinians on Wednesday in an hourslong raid on the occupied West Bank city of Nablus that also left more than 100 people with gunshot wounds, the Palestinian Health Ministry said. The Israeli army said the raid targeted militant suspects “in a hideout apartment”...

MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) — Security forces in Somalia have ended a siege by al-Shabab extremists that killed 10 people and wounded three others at a home in the capital, Mogadishu. The Information Ministry late Tuesday said the al-Qaida-linked fighters launched the rare attack on a private...

By Fouad Abdel Aziz Many have read the decision of the Central Bank of the Syrian regime to issue a daily bulletin at the exchange rate of the remittance dollar, close to the black market rate, as a liberalization of the exchange rate of the pound or the beginning of a liberalization of...

DIWANIYAH, Iraq (AP) — Dozens of Iraqi protesters gathered Sunday to decry the so-called “honor killing” of a 22-year-old YouTube star who was allegedly strangled by her father, adding fuel to calls for legal reforms protecting women. Interior Ministry spokesman Saad Maan on Friday announced...

BAGHDAD (AP) — Iraq's currency ended its nosedive after a meeting between the Iraqi Central Bank head and a top U.S. Treasury official. Under Secretary of the Treasury for terrorism and financial intelligence Brian E. Nelson said in a statement Saturday that he had met with Central Bank of...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. military on Saturday shot down a suspected Chinese spy balloon off the Carolina coast after it traversed sensitive military sites across North America. China insisted the flyover was an accident involving a civilian aircraft and threatened repercussions. President...

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Dozens of Russian and Ukrainian prisoners of war have returned home following a prisoner swap, officials on both sides said Saturday. Top Ukrainian presidential aide Andriy Yermak said in a Telegram post that 116 Ukrainians were freed. He said the released POWs...

The reconnaissance drones fly several times a day from Ukrainian positions deep inside the thick forest that marches across the border into Belarus, a close Russian ally, scouring sky and land for signs of trouble on the other side. Ukrainian units are monitoring the 1,000-kilometer...

CAIRO (AP) — The United States has stepped up pressure on Middle East allies to expel the Wagner Group, a military contractor with close ties to Russia's president, from chaos-stricken Libya and Sudan where it expanded in recent years, regional officials told The Associated Press. The U.S....

NEW YORK (AP) — He had been brought from the battlefields of Syria to a New York lockup, a U.S. citizen charged with serving as a sniper and weapons trainer for the Islamic State group. And even in jail, Ruslan Maratovich Asainov kept a makeshift version of the militants' black flag right...

 (AP) — Protesters streaming up the windswept hills east of Jerusalem interrupted Maha Ali’s breakfast. Palestinian chants of support for her West Bank Bedouin community of Khan al-Ahmar, at risk of demolition by the Israeli army since it lost its legal protection over four years ago,...

JERUSALEM (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken urged Israel and the Palestinians on Monday to ease tensions following a spike in violence that has put the region on edge. The bloodshed has alarmed the Biden administration as it attempts to find common ground with Israeli Prime Minister...

Iran’s defence ministry has reported several drone attacks on a military plant in the country’s central city of Isfahan. The attacks were “unsuccessful” and there were no casualties, the ministry said in a statement early on Sunday.   “One of [the drones] was hit by the … air defence...

BEIRUT (AP) — Lebanon, two international oil giants and state-owned oil and gas company Qatar Energy signed an agreement Sunday that the Qatari firm will join a consortium that will search for gas in the Mediterranean Sea off Lebanon’s coast. The deal inked in Beirut brings Qatar into...

JERUSALEM (AP) — An alarming spike in Israeli-Palestinian violence and sharp responses by both sides are testing the Biden administration as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken plunges into a cauldron of deepening mistrust and anger on visits to Israel and the West Bank this week. What...

The global chemical weapons watchdog said Friday that its investigators found “reasonable grounds to believe” Syria's air force dropped two cylinders containing chlorine gas on the city of Douma in April 2018, killing 43 people. A report by a team from the Organization for the Prohibition of...