Iraqi forces gained fresh ground in door-to-door fighting in the Old City of Mosul, a military spokesman said Monday, as the U.S.-backed offensive to capture ISIS' de facto capital in Iraq entered its seventh month. A Reuters correspondent saw thick smoke billowing over the Old City, near...

Repair work at a Basra oil jetty damaged by a tanker collision last month were completed Sunday, two officials at state-run South Oil Company told Reuters Monday. Crude exports from the Basra terminal were not affected by the collision that happened on March 24, when strong winds caused a...

Turkish stocks and the lira strengthened Monday after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan narrowly won a referendum on expanding his powers, with investors hoping the outcome would bring much-needed stability. On Sunday, the 'Yes' side won 51.41 percent of the vote compared with 48.59 for the...

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov said on Monday that diplomats from Russia, the United States and the United Nations plan to discuss the Syrian crisis in Geneva next week, Russian news agencies quoted him as saying. Bogdanov also said Moscow was still waiting for confirmation...

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe says Japan's government is drawing up contingency plans in case a crisis on the Korean Peninsula sends an influx of refugees to Japan. Abe told a parliamentary session Monday that the government is formulating measures including protecting foreigners, landing...

Ten people have died and five were injured when a bus veered off a highway and fell into a river in southern China. The Xinhua News Agency reported that four people were reported missing in the accident Monday morning in Guizhou province. The state news agency says the 19-seat bus was...

Turkey's main opposition party is preparing to contest the results of a referendum that gave a narrow victory to President Tayyip Erdogan's wishes to greatly expand the powers of his office. The "yes" vote got 51.41 percent in Sunday's referendum, while the "no" vote got 48.59 percent,...

Hundreds of Palestinians in Israeli jails launched a hunger strike Monday following a call from leader and prominent prisoner Marwan Barghouti, a Palestinian Authority official said. Issa Qaraqe, head of prisoners affairs for the Palestinian Authority, said that "around 1,300 Palestinian...

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence stared across the demilitarized border between North and South Korea Monday, a day after North Korea's failed missile launch, reiterating that the U.S. "era of strategic patience" with Pyongyang was over. Pence is on the first stop of a four-nation Asia tour...

 UK lawmakers are calling on the government to strip Syrian President Bashar Assad's wife of her British citizenship, for supporting her husband's regime during the country's ongoing war. The Liberal Democrats' foreign affairs spokesman, MP Tom Brake, on Sunday accused Assad of...

White House national security adviser H. R. McMaster said on Sunday it was time for tough talks with Russia over its support for Syria's government and its "subversive" actions in Europe. Speaking on ABC News' "This Week" program, McMaster said Russia's backing of Syrian President Bashar...

President Tayyip Erdogan celebrated what he said was a clear result in a referendum on Sunday to grant him sweeping new powers, but opponents said they would challenge the vote count which gave a narrow 51.3 percent lead to Erdogan's supporters. Nearly all ballots had been opened for...

Votes in favor of Turkish constitutional changes that could give President Tayyip Erdogan sweeping new powers stood at 52.8 percent with around 90 percent of ballots opened, the state-run Anadolu news agency said on Sunday. Votes against the changes have been rising, taking the lead in...

 Libya's unity government has called for "urgent intervention" by the international community to end military escalation in its south, warning of a possible "civil war". For more than a week, militias allied to the U.N.-backed Government of National Accord have fought off rival forces...

Hundreds of Iraqi Christians gathered on Sunday in a church damaged by Islamic State north of Mosul, celebrating Easter there for the first time since 2014. "God willing, the celebration of the resurrection of Christ will also mark the return and rising-up of the Christians in Iraq," said...

The Gaza Strip's only functioning power plant was out of action Sunday after running out of fuel, the head of the territory's electricity provider told AFP. Samir Metir said that all the plant's fuel, purchased with funding from Qatar and Turkey, had been used up. He said it was not...

Pope Francis denounced "oppressive regimes" in his Easter message Sunday but in an apparent call for restraint urged world leaders to prevent the spread of conflicts, as tensions rose in North Korea and Syria. Francis, marking the fifth Easter season of his pontificate, said Mass before tens...

Iraqi forces launched a new attack on ISIS in Mosul's Old City Sunday, military officials said, trying to break the stalemate in attempts to seize the militants' last stronghold. Mosul, Iraq's second biggest city, was captured by the Sunni Muslim fighters in 2014, but government forces have...

U.S. National Security Advisor Gen. H.R McMaster arrived in Kabul Sunday days after the American military dropped its largest non-nuclear bomb on ISIS hideouts in eastern Afghanistan, killing nearly a hundred militants. On his first visit to the country as President Donald Trump's envoy,...

North Korea Sunday staged a fresh missile test, a day after staging a defiant giant military parade and hours before US Vice President Mike Pence arrived in South Korea for talks on curbing Pyongyang's weapons programmes. The South Korean and US military said the latest launch -- conducted...