Mohamed Salah's Egypt started their bid for a record-extending eighth Africa Cup of Nations trophy on Friday with a 1-0 win over Zimbabwe in Cairo in the opening game of a tournament expanded to 24 teams and played in June and July for the first time. Liverpool star Salah, on a redemption...

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet called on Venezuela to release jailed dissidents Friday and said the crisis-wracked country faced a "serious" humanitarian situation. Her comments came at the end of a three-day visit to the country on the invitation of embattled...

For the first time in 59 years of independence, Mauritanians vote on Saturday for a successor to a democratically-elected president, though a government insider campaigning on a message of continuity is heavily tipped to win. Polls opened at 7 a.m. (0700 GMT) in the election to replace...

Palestinians on Friday converged near the fence that separates Gaza strip from Israel, to demonstrate against Israel’s decades-long occupation of Palestinian territories.  Gaza’s National Authority for Return and Breaking the Siege (NARBS), which organizes weekly rallies, called on...

U.S. immigration authorities plan to launch Sunday a sweeping effort to deport recently arrived families who are in the United States illegally, the Washington Post reported on Friday, citing three unnamed U.S. officials. In a call with reporters earlier this week, Mark Morgan, the acting...

United Nations food chief David Beasley said Friday he was hopeful that "good Houthis" would prevail to allow the agency to lift its partial suspension of aid in Yemen and prevent the collapse of the entire humanitarian system. The World Food Program said Thursday it had started a partial...

Attempts to trigger a national referendum – or RIP – on plans to privatise Paris airports have thrown a spanner in the works for Emmanuel Macron. But they may also help the president deliver on a pledge to breathe new life into French democracy. In an unprecedented show of unity, Macron’s...

Huge numbers of Algerians protested Friday in the capital, keeping up their push for a political overhaul despite a spate of arrests ahead of the latest weekly rally. Demonstrators brandished the Algerian flag that has been a mainstay of the protests, but some also carried the Berber...

U.S. President Donald Trump spoke on Friday to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman about Middle East stability and the oil market, the White House said, after tensions with Iran prompted a rise in oil prices. “The two leaders discussed Saudi Arabia’s critical role in ensuring stability...

Chinese police have rescued over 1,100 women from Southeast Asia who were "sold" as wives last year, authorities said Friday. Seventeen children were also saved in the joint operations with police from Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam and Thailand between July and December, the Ministry of...

A "flying object" which flew over a Japanese tanker before it was rocked by a blast in strategic Gulf waters last week could have been a reconnaissance drone, experts have told AFP. The owner of the Kokuka Courageous said the tanker's Japanese and Filipino crew saw a "flying object", just...

Huawei smartphone sales in Western Europe have risen “in the past few days” as customers grow more confident the Chinese company will weather U.S. sanctions imposed last month, an executive for the Chinese firm said on Friday. Walter Ji, Western Europe consumer business group president for...

Hundreds of Jordanian Islamists marched in the capital on Friday to denounce Washington’s peace plan to end the Arab-Israeli conflict and demand their government boycott a conference in Bahrain next week that will examine the project. Emerging from the main Husseini mosque in downtown Amman...

Russia is ready to help Iran with oil exports and its banking sector if the Instex European payment system is not launched, Interfax news agency cited Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov as saying on Friday. The Instex mechanism was created by European countries in an attempt to...

U.S. President Donald said on Friday he had aborted a military strike on Iran because such a response to Tehran’s downing of an unmanned U.S. surveillance drone would have caused a disproportionate loss of life. In a series of early morning tweets, Trump said U.S. economic sanctions against...

 A bomb blast killed seven people at a Shiite mosque in eastern Baghdad Friday and wounded more than 20, police sources said. The explosion took place in the Baladiyat neighborhood. A senior police source said that either a suicide belt or improvised explosive device had been used in...

U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday said he blocked a planned military strike against Iran because it would not have been a proportionate response to Tehran's downing of an unmanned U.S. surveillance drone, adding that more sanctions were imposed late Thursday. "10 minutes before the...

 Yemeni security officials say gunmen attacked a military checkpoint in the eastern province of Hadramawt, killing three soldiers and wounding four. The officials say the attack occurred early Friday in the town of Coton, a hotbed for Al-Qaeda militants. No one immediately claimed...

A court in Algeria has ordered the detention of businessman Hassan Larbaoui over corruption allegations, state radio reported on Friday. Larbaoui is director of a private company called Global Group, which runs a car assembly plant in eastern Algeria in a joint venture with South Korea's...

All eyes will be on Mohamed Salah later Friday as the Egypt star looks to help the Africa Cup of Nations hosts launch their bid for a record-extending eighth title in style against Zimbabwe in the opening match of a tournament expanded to 24 teams for the first time. After avenging last...