Chinese President Xi Jinping offered the prime minister of deeply indebted Greece strong support Saturday, saying the two countries should expand cooperation in infrastructure, energy and telecommunications. Xi told Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras that Greece was an important part in China's...

( The Guardian )- Emmanuel Macron will take power as French president on Sunday and immediately face the twin challenges of European Union reform and loosening strict labour laws in France. After walking up the red carpet to the Élysée Palace on Sunday morning, being briefed on the nuclear...

The United States is close to completing a series of arms deals for Saudi Arabia totaling more than $100 billion, a senior White House official said Friday, a week ahead of President Donald Trump's planned visit to Riyadh. The official, who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity, said...

President Donald Trump will leave on his first trip abroad as the U.S. leader next Friday, stopping in Saudi Arabia, Israel and Italy in a bid to unite Muslims, Jews and Christians behind an effort to shun terrorism, the White House said on Friday. National security adviser H.R. McMaster...

( The Guardian )- The Turkish president will seek to persuade Donald Trump to reverse his “mistaken and shortsighted” plan to arm Kurdish forces in Syria, announced as part of an American attempt to crush Islamic State’s final stronghold in Raqqa. US officials this week announced a deal to...

 Iran's six presidential candidates exchanged barbs in their final debate on Friday, accusing each other of corruption and economic mismanagement a week ahead of the election. Seeking a second four-year term, moderate President Hassan Rouhani has been on the offensive all week, framing...

 A Palestinian youth was shot dead during clashes with Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank on Friday, the Palestinian health ministry said. The man was shot during the protests which are held weekly near the village of Nabi Saleh, north of Ramallah, and later died in a nearby...

NASA said Friday it would revamp plans for a spacewalk outside the International Space Station after a cable that supplies power, oxygen, cooling water and communications to one of the astronaut's spacesuits started to leak. The problem delayed the start of what will be the 200th spacewalk...

Iraq's Shi'ite paramilitaries launched an offensive on Friday to drive Islamic State from a desert region near the border with Syria as security forces fought the militants in the city of Mosul. Spokesman Karim al-Nouri said the target of the operation was the Qairawan and Baaj areas about...

( The New Arab )- The UAE said a ban on the import of some vegetables from Jordan, Egypt, Oman, Lebanon and Yemen will stay despite regional media reports that it might ease restrictions.  Abu Dhabi's ministry of climate change and environment ordered the ban after UAE labs found high...

 A bomb exploded next to a convoy of the deputy chairman of the Pakistan Senate Friday in the violence-plagued province of Baluchistan, killing at least 25 people, officials said. At least 35 people were wounded in the blast near the town of Mastung, 50 km (30 miles) from the provincial...

Former British prime minister Tony Blair said Friday that the landmark 1998 peace agreement for Northern Ireland -- which he helped to negotiate -- would have to be changed because of Brexit. "The Good Friday or Belfast Agreement was formulated on the assumption that both countries were part...

The EU is seeking urgent talks with Washington over a possible U.S. ban on carry-on computers on European flights to the United States, an EU source said Friday. The European Union has not yet received a response from Washington to its request, the source said. The U.S. Department of...

An Iraqi official says the country's Shiite-led militia force has launched an operation to retake a small village held by ISIS west of the embattled city of Mosul. Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, who heads the government-sanctioned militia forces known as the Popular Mobilization Units, says the push...

North Korea demanded Friday the extradition of South Korea's spy chief, accusing him of being a mastermind of a plot to assassinate its leader, Kim Jong Un, with a biochemical weapon. The North's KCNA state news agency last week accused the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and South Korea's...

( The Guardian )- The Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, has taken a combative tone in campaigning as conservative rivals pull out all the stops to prevent him from being re-elected.  The favourite among reformists of the six candidates running for president on 19 May, Rouhani has...

Turkey Friday detained 57 people in an operation against the Istanbul stock exchange as part of the investigation into the failed July 15 coup, state media said. The 57 people were detained in six different provinces, with over 100 arrest warrants issued, the state-run Anadolu news agency...

Centrist French President elect Emmanuel Macron is open to talks with the main conservative grouping, a top aide said Friday, a day after his start-up party included a group of Socialists among his candidates for the coming parliamentary election. Macron, until last year economy minister in...

 Top finance officials from seven advanced economies have gathered to hear more about U.S. President Donald Trump's economic policies on taxation and trade as well as to look for ways to promote growth, combat terrorist financing and stop tax avoidance by major corporations. The meeting...

Turkey has agreed to a request from the Australian government to extradite a citizen it believes to be a top recruiter for ISIS, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said Friday. Melbourne-born Neil Prakash has been linked to several Australia-based attack plans and has appeared in ISIS videos...