Ukraine said  Russia  was building up armored vehicles on its side of a narrow stretch of water near the Ukrainian region of Crimea after President Vladimir Putin said he had the right to invade his neighbor, prompting a sell-off in Russian assets. Ukraine mobilized for war...

Gunmen burst into a court in a busy shopping area in the center of the Pakistani capital on Monday, killing at least 11 people in a brazen attack likely to shatter any prospect of meaningful peace negotiations with Taliban insurgents. A loud explosion reverberated across central...

Millions of children in the Middle East will be vaccinated against polio this month after the crippling disease resurfaced in conflict-hit Syria, the United Nations said Sunday. Mass vaccinations have already been launched in Egypt, Iraq, Jordan and Syria, while a similar campaign in...

Hundreds of thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews held a mass prayer in Jerusalem on Sunday in protest at a bill that would cut their community's military exemptions and end a tradition upheld since Israel's foundation. Ultra-Orthodox leaders had called on their men, women and children...

 Russian President Vladimir Putin demanded and won his parliament's approval on Saturday to invade Ukraine, where the new government warned of war, put its troops on high alert and appealed to NATO for help. Putin's open assertion of the right to send troops to a country of 46...

Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, has submitted a proposal to the upper house of the Russian parliament, the Federation Council, to use the country’s armed forces in Ukraine, Kremlin has reported. "In connection with the extraordinary situation in Ukraine and the threat to...

The army said Friday that its troops had killed up to 13 Boko Harm militants in raids on the group's "entry and escape points" near Nigeria's borders with Cameroon. In an email to media on Friday evening, army spokesman Chris Olukolade said the raids – which targeted "the terrorists'...

Twenty people, including 14 security troops, have been killed and 14 others injured in a series of roadside bomb blasts and firing in northwest and southwest Pakistan on Saturday, officials said. Eleven Para military troops were killed and 8 injured in two separate bomb blasts in...

Tunisia's prime minister replaced most state governors on Friday, bowing to a demand from secular parties to purge Islamists From key jobs before elections this year. After a political crisis brought on by the killing of two opposition leaders last year, the ruling Islamist party...

At least 13 people died when Shi'ite Muslim fighters clashed with security forces in northern  Yemen  on Friday, government sources said, underlining the chaos still gripping the country two years after mass protests ousted its leader. The fighters were from the Houthi...

Thousands of Palestinian worshippers have failed to perform the weekly prayers at the Al-Aqsa Mosque on Friday due to Israeli restrictions in Al-Quds (occupied East Jerusalem). Hundreds of Palestinian youths were forced to pray in the streets after they were denied access into the...

Russian aircraft carrying nearly 2,000 suspected troops have landed at a military airbase near the regional capital of the restive Crimean peninsula, a top Ukrainian official has said, accusing Moscow of an "armed invasion". "Thirteen Russian aircraft landed at the airport of...

Turkey's main opposition party asked the top court on Friday to overturn a law tightening government control of the judiciary, which it sees as a bid by Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan to snuff out a corruption scandal. Hours after the law was enacted late on Thursday, Justice...

Armed men took control of two airports in the Crimea region on Friday in what Ukraine's government described as an invasion and occupation by Russian forces, raising tension between Moscow and the West. Russia's Black Sea fleet, which is based in the region, denied its forces were...

An Islamic group met Wednesday to quash fatwas (religious edicts) ruling that polio vaccines cause infertility, Al Arabiya News Channel reported “The whole world rejects such fatwas that polio vaccines cause infertility,” Abbas Chouman, a senior official at Cairo’s al-Azhar University...

The United States told Russia to demonstrate in coming days that it was sincere about its promise not to intervene in Ukraine, after armed men seized the regional parliament in a mainly ethnic Russian region and raised the Russian flag. Crimea, the only Ukrainian region with an...

 Twelve people including two children were killed on Thursday when a gas tank exploded at a Turkish restaurant in the Qatari capital Doha, authorities in the Gulf Arab state reported. About 30 others were injured in the blast at the Istanbul Restaurant that one security source...

Israeli forces are using excessive, reckless violence in the occupied West Bank, killing dozens of Palestinians over the past three years in what might constitute a war crime, Amnesty International said on Thursday. In a report entitled "Trigger Happy", the human rights group...

Iraqi officials gave contradictory accounts on Tuesday about whether or not Baghdad had agreed to buy $195 million worth of arms and ammunition from  Iran  as reported by Reuters, a deal that if confirmed could damage Iraqi-U.S. relations. The Defence Ministry denied any such...

Jerd Arsal, Lebanese-Syrian border  - On the blurry border line between Syria and Lebanon lies a small stone building hidden in the rugged, mountainous terrain. It is a "surveillance centre" set up by rebels to monitor the "potential infiltration" of Shia Hezbollah fighters...