Japan will lease additional land next year to expand a military base in Djibouti, eastern Africa, as a counterweight to what it sees as growing Chinese influence in the region, three Japanese government sources said. China is seeking closer ties with African nations that could help it gain...

Moscow and Washington have pledged to try again to negotiate a lasting ceasefire for war-ravaged Syria, committing to multilateral weekend talks in Europe, after the last attempt collapsed amid bitter recriminations. Syria has been plunged into some of the worst violence of the five-year...

The U.S. military launched cruise missile strikes on Thursday to knock out three coastal radar sites in areas of Yemen controlled by Iran-aligned Houthi forces, retaliating after failed missile attacks this week on a U.S. Navy destroyer, U.S. officials said. The strikes, authorized by...

Reporting by Mustafa Mohamed (Eqtsad)- Salim Akil, a Syrian Engineer has won “Forbes Award” for the best promising project in the middle East 2016 for his "MINA network", the Business to Business (B2B) company that is specialized in online marketing. The network is based in Dubai, considered...

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will meet his Russian counterpart in Switzerland on Saturday to discuss Syria, officials said on Wednesday, as a devastating bombing campaign of the city of Aleppo intensified. The Syrian government launched an assault to capture rebel-held areas of Aleppo...

The U.S. military has taken advanced system into Iraq to fight Daesh’s flying explosives, a U.S.-led coalition’s spokesman said Wednesday. “We've seen the enemy use a variety of drones and improvised drones and modified drones,” Col. John Dorian told reporters in a videoconference call from...

European Union (EU) countries need to start phasing out coal substantially from their energy mix for the EU to be able to hit its climate targets as outlined in the COP21 agreement in Paris, Patrick Graichen, executive director of Agora Energiewende, said at the World Energy Congress in Istanbul...

French President Francois Hollande told the authors of a book just published that "France has a problem with Islam", comments that risk dividing his party before next year's presidential election. Hollande made the remarks to the two authors of "A President Shouldn't Say That...." in...

Forces loyal to Yemen's exiled government clashed with Houthi fighters over a strategic town close to the border with Saudi Arabia on Wednesday in a sign a new front may be opening in the 19-month-old civil war. Officials from the internationally recognized government of President Abd-Rabu...

A Palestinian military court slapped a military officer Wednesday with a one-year jail term for criticizing Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ participation at the funeral of former Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres last month, according to the officer's lawyer. "Lieutenant-Colonel Osama...

Five young men were executed by Daesh militants in the Daesh-held city of Mosul in Iraq’s northern Nineveh province for alleged collaboration with Iraqi security forces, an army source told Anadolu Agency on Wednesday. "Daesh militants beheaded five young men in front of a crowd of people in...

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday accused France of deliberately luring Moscow into vetoing a United Nations resolution on Syria and suggested Paris was doing the bidding of the United States. Russia last week imposed its veto on a French-backed resolution condemning the violence...

Moroccan authorities on Wednesday dismantled a "Daesh-linked terrorist cell", according to a statement issued by the Interior Ministry. "Within the context of preemptive operations to counter terrorist threats, the Central Office of Judicial Research [intelligence agency] -- in coordination...

France confirmed on Wednesday two of its soldiers had been injured in a drone attack carried out by Daesh in Iraq. Government spokesman Stephane Le Foll told reporters the soldiers were hurt earlier this month near the Iraqi city of Erbil. Speaking after a cabinet meeting, Le Foll said...

The population of the Israeli-blockaded Gaza Strip has now surpassed the two-million mark, the Interior Ministry in Gaza’s Hamas-run government has announced. In a statement, the ministry’s General Directorate for Civil Affairs said the strip’s total population had surpassed two million...

Police suspect an arson attack in a fire which damaged a Muslim prayer room in Malmo, southern Sweden. Firefighters from three different fire stations in the city – Sweden’s third-largest – quickly put the fire out Tuesday, and no one was injured. The entire building was smoke damaged....

Japan's Toyota Motor Corp (7203.T) and Suzuki Motor Corp (7269.T) said they plan to explore a possible partnership, citing technological challenges and the need to keep up with consolidation in the global auto industry. Toyota invests heavily in R&D for automated driving functions and...

Three civilians were killed when two bombings rocked Iraqi capital Baghdad on Wednesday, according to a security source. Baghdad Police Colonel Salem al-Numaan told Anadolu Agency that the first bomb had gone off near a crowded market in southern Baghdad’s Al-Mahmudiya district, killing two...

The top U.N. human rights official repeated his call on Wednesday for a dilution of big powers' United Nations veto in cases of serious war crimes, but he gave little support to Syrian opposition hopes of strong-arming Russia over eastern Aleppo. Russian war planes have bombed rebel-held...

The Turkish army killed at least 47 Daesh terrorists in northern Syria in the past 24 hours as part of Operation Euphrates Shield, the military said on Wednesday. The Turkish Air Force carried out airstrikes and launched artillery fire against Daesh positions in several areas of northern...