Military officers from rival factions in Libya's conflict began U.N.-led talks in Geneva on Monday aimed at securing a ceasefire after 10 months of fighting on the outskirts of the capital, Tripoli. The so-called "Libyan Joint Military Commission" includes five senior officers from eastern...

Police on the Greek island of Lesbos on Monday fired tear gas at hundreds of migrants protesting against tougher new asylum rules, officials said. Brandishing makeshift signs with the word "freedom", some 2,000 men and women walked out of the overpopulated camp of Moria to demonstrate....

Bridegrooms in the Gaza Strip are finding marriage a path to debtors’ prison rather than to happiness. Wedding celebrations cost around $10,000 in the Palestinian enclave, but a tradition of strong family ties and large gatherings often trumps financial common sense. So with...

Iraqi Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s supporters, also known as blue hats, on Monday allegedly opened fire on people protesting against the appointment of Mohammed Tawfiq Allawi as the country’s prime minister. This came after al-Sadr had asked his supporters to help security forces clear the...

The United Arab Emirates, a leading OPEC producer, announced Monday the discovery of huge gas reserves, saying the find would help the Gulf state achieve self-sufficiency. Abu Dhabi National Oil Co (ADNOC) said about 80 trillion cubic feet of shallow gas resources were discovered between...

The Organization of Islamic Cooperation said on Monday it rejects U.S. President Donald Trump's Middle East peace plan. The pan-Islamic body, which represents more than 1.5 billion Muslims worldwide, "rejects this US-Israeli plan, as it does not meet the minimum aspirations and legitimate...

Top EU diplomat Josep Borrell held talks Monday in the Iranian capital on a mission aimed at lowering tensions over the Islamic republic's nuclear programme. Borrell's trip, his first to Iran since taking office, follows a spike in tensions between arch foes Washington and Tehran following...

Iran is no longer sharing evidence from the investigation into the Ukraine airliner crash with Ukraine after audio from the investigation was leaked by Ukrainian media, the director in charge of accident investigations at Iran’s Civil Aviation Organization was quoted as saying on Monday....

Armed men attacked a gas pipeline in the north of Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula late on Sunday, security sources and witnesses said, but imports of gas through North Sinai from Israel were unaffected. Egyptian security forces have been battling an Islamist insurgency that is concentrated in North...

Iran will not have bilateral talks with America, Iran’s Foreign Ministry said on Monday. “Iran does not have and will not have any kind of bilateral negotiation with American and this is our policy,” ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi said in a press conference broadcast live on state TV....

Flights carrying patients in need of urgent medical attention will begin Monday to fly from the Yemeni capital Sanaa, aid and diplomatic sources said, a long-sought confidence-building measure in diplomatic efforts to end the five-year war. The United Nations and World Health Organization...

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson will set out tougher rules on releasing people convicted of terrorism offences after an Islamist attacker injured two people in a stabbing spree days after he was set free half way through his prison term. Sudesh Amman, jailed in 2018 for possession of...

Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh said Monday that the spread of China's new coronavirus had hit oil demand and called for an effort to stabilise oil prices, Iran's official news agency IRNA reported. The minister also said Iran would agree to an earlier OPEC meeting if the rest of the...

Hong Kong confirmed Monday it plunged into recession in 2019, suffering its first annual contraction in a decade as the city buckled under the twin pressures of the US-China trade war and months of furious pro-democracy protests. The data was released as the semi-autonomous city begins the...

Protests camps in Iraq's capital and the south began to fracture on Monday, activists and AFP reporters said, split over whether to back prime minister-designate Mohammad Allawi. Allawi's nomination on February 1 has so far failed to quell the months-long rallies sweeping Baghdad and the...

The death toll from anti-government protests in Iraq has risen to 556, Iraq's Independent High Commission for Human Rights said Sunday. A statement from the press office of Ali al-Bayati, a representative of the commission, said those who doubt the figure should reveal their evidence....

China's death toll from a new coronavirus jumped above 360 on Monday to surpass the number of fatalities of its SARS crisis two decades ago, with dozens of people dying in the epicentre's quarantined ground-zero. The 57 confirmed new deaths was the single-biggest increase since the virus...

The United States on Sunday invited General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, head of Sudan’s sovereign council, to visit Washington, the council said, highlighting warmer bilateral ties since the army toppled President Omar al-Bashir last year. U.S Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who invited Burhan...

Suspected jihadists killed nearly 20 civilians in an attack overnight on the northern Burkina Faso village of Bani, Seno province, security sources said Sunday. “The attackers, heavily armed and on motorbikes, literally executed the local inhabitants,” the security source told AFP. The...

US presidential advisor Jared Kushner said on Sunday that if Palestinians are unable to meet the conditions of the new Middle East peace plan he crafted, Israel should not take "the risk to recognize them as a state." The plan laid out by Kushner, President Donald Trump's son-in-law, and...