Top UN officials said Saturday they were "appalled" by escalating violence in Syria, and urged immediate access to Aleppo, where government forces are waging a ferocious assault to retake rebel-held districts. "The United Nations is extremely saddened and appalled by the recent escalation in...

Anti-terrorist judges have charged a French teenager over links to an ISIS extremist suspected of instigating several attacks in France, a judicial source said Saturday. The 17-year-old boy was allegedly in touch with French-born extremist Rachid Kassim, who is believed to have inspired an...

For more than six years, Donald Trump fought hard against a lawsuit in which former customers of his now-defunct Trump University accused him of fraud. Less than two weeks after being elected president, he agreed to a $25 million settlement. "We definitely detected a change of tone and...

Moscow has sought an explanation from the Swiss government after Swiss fighter jets flew close to a Russian government airliner en route to Peru for the APEC summit. Three Swiss F/A 18 jets Friday came close to the airplane carrying Russian APEC delegation members and journalists and...

Thousands of Indonesians held a peaceful rally on Saturday to promote unity, saying they were worried by signs of growing racial and religious intolerance in the world's largest Muslim-majority country. Dressed in red and white shirts, the colors of the Indonesian flag, religious leaders,...

 British-Iranian woman serving a five-year jail sentence after being accused of sedition in Iran has reached "breaking point" and considered suicide, rights group Amnesty said Saturday. Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who works for the Thomson Reuters Foundation, was sentenced in September...

 Police Saturday detained two Swedish TV journalists in the sensitive Kurdish-majority province of Diyarkabir in southeastern Turkey after they filmed near a military zone, a local news agency reported. The pair, identified only by their initials as L.N.B. and R.A.S., were arrested...

Chinese state media warned U.S. President-elect Donald Trump on Saturday against flip-flopping on trade deals in Asia, as Asia-Pacific leaders gathered for a summit amid fears that growing protectionism will stunt global economic growth. During the raucous election campaign, Trump fuelled...

(The Daily Star)- A Saudi delegation is expected to arrive in Beirut at the beginning of next week to meet with senior officials after the recent political breakthrough in the country, local media reported Saturday. Saudi King Salman bin Abdul-Aziz will dispatch Emir of Mecca Prince Khaled...

(Daily Star)- Iraq's exports from the Kirkuk oil field through an export pipeline to Turkey have dropped because of power outages, an official at state-run North Oil Co. said Saturday. Export are currently running at 100,000 barrels per day (bpd), compared with 133,000 bpd in October, the...

A senior military commander says Iraqi troops are facing stiff resistance from ISIS militants as they push deeper into eastern Mosul. Maj. Gen. Sami al-Aridi of the Iraqi special forces says his troops moved early Saturday morning into the Muharabeen and Ulama neighborhoods after fully...

A Saudi-led military coalition will start a 48-hour ceasefire in Yemen's war at noon (0900 GMT) on Saturday in the latest effort to end a conflict that has displaced millions and caused a worsening humanitarian disaster. The coalition has been fighting Houthi rebels and forces loyal to...

China has filed an appeal against a ruling by the World Trade Organization (WTO) in a dispute over methodologies used by the United States to calculate anti-dumping tariffs targeting Chinese imports, a WTO statement said. In the dispute panel ruling released last month, China won the bulk of...

The administration of President Barack Obama moved Friday to block new leases for oil drilling in the Arctic region, according to the Interior Department. The move is an attempt before he leaves office to strengthen Obama’s environmental legacy by preventing new leases for exploration and...

Iraqi forces have found another suspected mass grave containing the remains of ISIS victims in territory recaptured from the extremists near Mosul, AFP journalists reported Friday. An AFP team visited the isolated site that was recaptured recently by elite interior ministry forces down a...

A US-backed Kurdish-Arab alliance on Friday fought fiercely to drive ISIS from a hilltop north of the extremists' de facto Syrian capital of Raqqa. The fighting took place as a senior official with the Syrian Democratic Forces told AFP that US-led coalition forces had not only provided...

The besieged population of eastern Aleppo faces a "very bleak moment" with no food or medical supplies, winter approaching, and an increasingly fierce attack by Syrian and allied forces, U.N. humanitarian adviser Jan Egeland said Friday. Although Russia and rebel groups both sounded positive...

 U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has tapped three senior leaders of his national security and law enforcement teams, choosing Senator Jeff Sessions for attorney general, Representative Mike Pompeo as CIA director and General Mike Flynn as national security adviser, a transition official...

President Barack Obama joined the leaders of major European countries in Germany Friday to discuss security and economic challenges facing the trans-Atlantic partners. The session with the leaders of Germany, Britain, France, Italy and Spain expands on lengthy talks he held a day earlier...

(The Daily Star )- NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Friday he was certain that Donald Trump as U.S. president will lead the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and he is hoping to speak to the president-elect soon. "I am absolutely confident that President Trump will maintain U.S...