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...

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...

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...

Several hundred people rallied in Hong Kong Friday after the expiry of a deadline protesters set for the government to completely scrap a controversial extradition bill, in the latest wave of protests in the Chinese-ruled city. Demonstrators, mostly students dressed in black, gathered...

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Thursday called on the international community to support the United States against Iran as tensions between the two countries escalated after the downing of a U.S. drone by Iran. "In the last 24 hours Iran has intensified its aggression against the...

The United States Thursday added Saudi Arabia and Cuba to its blacklist of countries that it says are not doing enough to fight human trafficking, a designation that could bring sanctions. In an annual report, the State Department faulted ally Saudi Arabia for rampant violations against its...

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan Thursday said he did not expect the United States to impose sanctions on Turkey over its planned purchase of a Russian missile defense system and repeated that it was a "done deal." Speaking at a rare news conference for foreign media in Istanbul,...

The United Nations’ top human rights official arrived in Venezuela Wednesday for a visit that comes amid heightened international pressure on President Nicolás Maduro for allegedly silencing opponents with jail, torture and excessive violence. On her first visit to the South American...

U.S. leaders are reluctant to admit that their policy has failed in Venezuela, with excuse-making machinery working overtime, said Ted Galen Carpenter, a senior fellow in defense and foreign policy studies at the CATO Institute. In his article for news website Real Clear World "Is It Time...

 South Korea said Wednesday it plans to send 50,000 tons of rice to North Korea through the World Food Program, in its second aid package announced over the past month as it seeks to help with North Korean food shortages and improve bilateral relations. South Korean Unification...

More than 70 million people were counted last year as displaced from their homes, a record that underestimates the real number of refugees and asylum seekers, the UN said Wednesday. In its annual global trends report, the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) described the figure of 70.8...

Hong Kong's "leaderless" demonstrations brought millions of people onto the streets and forced the city's pro-Beijing leadership into a rare climbdown. But with no one directing the action, where does the movement go now? The unpopular bill that sparked the protests and would have allowed...

US President Donald Trump launched his 2020 re-election campaign Tuesday, whipping up a crowd of at least 20,000 with a nationalist boast about the US economy being the "envy" of the world. Promising the packed arena in Orlando, Florida an "earthquake at the ballot box," Trump said: "We did...

 Russia and China on Tuesday delayed a U.S. request for a U.N. Security Council sanctions committee to demand an immediate halt to deliveries of refined petroleum to North Korea over accusations Pyongyang violated a U.N. cap, diplomats said. The United States, backed by dozens of...

The United States must have the capability to respond to any Iranian attack on US interests, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Tuesday. He spoke at the Florida headquarters of US Central Command, which oversees US forces in the Middle East, a day after the US said it was sending another...

More than 300,000 people have fled inter-ethnic violence in northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo since early June, complicating the tracing and treatment of patients at risk from Ebola, U.N. aid agencies said on Tuesday. At least 161 people have been killed in a northeastern province...

Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam on Tuesday signaled the end of a controversial extradition bill that she promoted and then postponed after some of the most violent protests since the former British colony returned to Chinese rule in 1997. In a closely watched press conference, Lam apologized...

The death toll from two strong earthquakes in China rose to 11 on Tuesday, with 122 people injured, state media said, adding that rescuers pulled some survivors from rubble in a part of the country that often suffers strong tremors. The quakes, roughly 30 minutes apart, hit the southwestern...

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Embattled Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam will address the city on Tuesday after some of the biggest and most violent protests seen in the financial hub against an extradition bill that she postponed in a stark reversal of policy. The bill would allow case by case...

Spanish police on Tuesday detained 10 nationals of Syrian origin accused of financing “al-Qaeda terrorist militia” in Syria, the interior ministry and a source close to the probe said. With Europol’s collaboration, more than 350 agents took part in an operation in Madrid, further south...