A successful peace process with the Taliban will allow the government to focus its resources on countering the Islamic State group and its attacks on soft targets, Afghanistan's national security adviser said Saturday. Afghanistan is grappling with a surge in violence that has worsened...

Next year is shaping up to be a humanitarian catastrophe and rich countries must not trample poor countries in a “stampede for vaccines” to combat the coronavirus pandemic, top U.N. officials told the 193-member U.N. General Assembly on Friday. World Food Programme (WFP) chief David Beasley...

Violence in Afghanistan is “unacceptably high” as delayed peace negotiations get underway, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Friday, adding that Washington has asked the warring parties to “stand back and indeed stand down.” Pompeo’s comments, made in a virtual address to the IISS...

Recent progress on COVID-19 vaccines is positive but the World Health Organization is concerned this has led to a growing perception that the pandemic has come to an end, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Friday. "Progress on vaccines gives us all a lift and we can now...

It took Luis Salgado years of manual labor to save enough money to open a small fresh produce store, so when torrential floods swept away $1,500 worth of apples, bananas and other fruits, he decided there was no longer a future for him in Honduras. Salgado had already been struggling to eke...

For a man obsessed with winning, President Donald Trump is losing a lot. He’s managed to lose not just once to Democrat Joe Biden at the ballot box but over and over again in courts across the country in a futile attempt to stay in power. The Republican president and his allies continue to...

Over 1.5 million people have lost their lives due to COVID-19 with one death reported every nine seconds on a weekly average, as vaccinations are set to begin in December in a handful of developed nations. Half a million deaths occurred in just the last two months, indicating that the...

Some damage to Sino-U.S. ties is “beyond repair” amid a new wave of Trump administration measures to counter China, Chinese state media warned, amid growing rancour underlined by an ugly Twitter spat between a U.S. senator and Chinese journalists. Relations between the world’s two largest...

President Nicolas Maduro and his allies are set to dominate Sunday's legislative elections in Venezuela, which are being boycotted by the mainstream opposition parties led by his main rival Juan Guaido. Victory will give Maduro's ruling Socialist Party control of the National Assembly, the...

Facebook on Thursday said it would remove posts containing false claims about the Covid-19 vaccine as it tries to manage the flow of disinformation on its platform. The social media giant regularly removes incorrect and potentially harmful information about the virus and has since October...

  The top U.N. official for Libya said Wednesday there are at least 20,000 foreign fighters and mercenaries in the war-torn nation, and warned of a “serious crisis” as weapons continue pouring into the North African country. “That is a shocking violation of Libyan sovereignty ... a...

Japanese prosecutors are seeking to question former prime minister Shinzo Abe over a scandal involving the cost of events held for his supporters, local media said Thursday. Under Japanese law, spending on political events must be reported, but prosecutors allege that Abe's office failed to...

World Health Organization's head of emergency services on Wednesday hailed Britain's approval of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine. However, Dr. Mike Ryan said more vaccines are needed and until then measures such as wearing masks in public must be followed. Ryan spoke with WHO epidemiologist...

President Donald Trump teased running again for president in 2024 as he hosted a holiday reception at the White House. "It’s been an amazing four years," Trump told the crowd, which included many Republican National Committee members. "We’re trying to do another four years. Otherwise, I’ll...

Afghan government and Taliban representatives said on Wednesday they had reached a preliminary deal to press on with peace talks, their first written agreement in 19 years of war. The agreement lays out the way forward for further discussion but is considered a breakthrough because it will...

Japan will give free coronavirus vaccines to all of its residents under a bill passed Wednesday, as the nation battles record numbers of daily cases. The bill, which says the government will cover all vaccine costs for Japan's 126 million residents, was approved by the upper house of...

China successfully landed a spacecraft on the moon's surface on Tuesday in a historic mission to retrieve lunar surface samples, Chinese state media reported. China launched its Chang'e-5 probe on Nov. 24. The uncrewed mission, named after the mythical Chinese goddess of the moon, aims to...

 The United Nations refugee agency appealed on Tuesday to Ethiopian authorities for access to 96,000 Eritrean refugees in the northern Tigray region, where it said food is believed to have run out during the month-long conflict. Babar Baloch, spokesman of the U.N. High Commissioner for...

U.S. President-elect Joe Biden will formally introduce his top economic policy advisers on Tuesday as his administration prepares to take power amid a slowing economic recovery hampered by the resurgent coronavirus pandemic. Biden will appear at an event in his hometown of Wilmington,...

The UN said Tuesday that $35 billion would be needed for aid in 2021, as the pandemic leaves tens of millions more people in crisis, and with the risk of multiple famines looming. The world body's annual Global Humanitarian Overview estimated that 235 million people worldwide will need some...