South Korea and the United States on Thursday reaffirmed their commitment to defending "the hard-fought peace" on the divided peninsula as the allies marked the 70th anniversary of the outbreak of the Korean War. Communist North Korea invaded the US-backed South on June 25, 1950, triggering...

President Donald Trump is facing a critical decision on Israel that could alter America’s position in the Middle East and may affect his election-year support with a central part of his political base. In the coming days, Trump must decide whether to support Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin...

Russia and China will be isolated at the United Nations if they continue down the "road to dystopia" by blocking a US bid to extend a weapons ban on Iran, US Iran envoy Brian Hook told Reuters ahead of his formal pitch of the embargo to the UN Security Council Wednesday. The 13-year-old...

The head of the Arab League warned a high-level UN meeting Wednesday that Israel’s annexation of parts of the West Bank would endanger Middle East peace and could ignite "a religious war in and beyond our region." Ahmed Aboul Gheit, secretary-general of the 22-member organization, said...

World Health Organization Director General Tedros Adhanom said on Wednesday he expected the number of novel coronavirus cases around the world, now at about 9.3 million, to reach 10 million next week. Tedros also told a news briefing he backed Saudi Arabia's decision to ban pilgrims from...

Researchers in Brazil began administering an experimental coronavirus vaccine developed by Oxford University to volunteers, the Federal University of Sao Paulo said Wednesday. The vaccine, developed together with pharmaceuticals group AstraZeneca, is one of the most promising of the dozens...

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Wednesday that the Trump administration was imposing sanctions on five Iranian ship captains who had delivered oil to Venezula. Speaking to reporters, Pompeo also said the United States continues to support Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido....

The Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen said Wednesday it deployed troops in the province of Abyan to monitor a ceasefire between the internationally recognized government and the southern separatists. Yemen’s Saudi-backed government and the United Arab Emirates-backed Southern...

Tunisian youths clashed with police overnight in a town in Tunisia's deprived south, where a protest movement is demanding jobs and services, the interior ministry said Wednesday. "Several hundred people" gathered Tuesday night in front of a local security forces facility in Douz, 475...

Iran’s death toll from COVID-19 has risen to nearly 10,000 with 133 new fatalities in the past 24 hours, the health ministry said, extending a reversal from a steady fall in daily numbers as the country has relaxed its lockdown. There were 2,531 new coronavirus infections reported in the...

The International Monetary Fund has sharply lowered its forecast for global growth this year because it envisions far more severe economic damage from the coronavirus than it did just two months ago. The IMF predicts that the global economy will shrink 4.9% this year, significantly worse...

Israel's parliament has approved a request by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for tax exemptions for official benefits that could exceed $150,000. Coming at a time when Israel is grappling with a major economic crisis due to the pandemic and Netanyahu standing trial on corruption charges,...

Oil prices fell on Wednesday, reversing the previous session’s surge, as record high inventories and worries about a second wave of the coronavirus pandemic outweighed support from a gradual reopening of global economies. Brent crude were down 43 cents, or 1%, to $42.20 a barrel by 1020 GMT...

The Libyan army said Tuesday it had discovered the bodies of three people in an area south of the capital Tripoli.  According to a statement issued by the press office of the Burkan Al-Ghadab (Volcano of Rage) Operation, the bodies of the unidentified individuals were found in Ayn...

 Iran would be open to talks with the United States if Washington apologizes for exiting a 2015 nuclear deal and compensates Tehran, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said Wednesday, cautioning that US calls for discussions were insincere. The confrontation between arch foes Tehran and...

The UN chief called for more pressure to be applied to Yemen's warring parties to come together to arrange a cease-fire in the war that has cost more than 10,000 lives and displaced two million people in the world's worst humanitarian disaster. Yemeni people are "suffering terribly" and...

One Turkish soldier was killed and two others were wounded in southeast Turkey as they came under fire from the Iranian side of the border, Turkey's Defense Ministry said Wednesday in a statement that did not say who had shot at its soldiers. The soldiers were conducting reconnaissance and...

Seven fighters, including two Syrian soldiers, were killed in Israeli strikes Tuesday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. "Five pro-Iranian fighters were killed in a strike on a military center belonging to pro-Tehran militias" on the Sokhna-Deir Ezzor road in eastern Syria,...

Coronavirus infections are surging across large parts of the United States, the top US infectious disease expert has warned, as the death toll in Latin America passed 100,000. The developments highlighted how far away the world remains from ending the pandemic, six months into a crisis that...

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has suspended plans for military action against the South, state media reported Wednesday, in an apparent sudden dialling down of tensions after Pyongyang blew up a liaison office. In recent weeks, Pyongyang has issued a series of vitriolic condemnations of...