(AP) — House Democrats nominated Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday to be the speaker who guides them again next year as Joe Biden becomes president, and she quickly seemed to suggest these would be her final two years in the leadership post. The California Democrat, the first woman to be...

The Taliban on Wednesday welcomed the Pentagon's announcement it would soon pull about 2,000 US troops from Afghanistan as a "good step" that will help end the country's long-running conflict. The Pentagon announced Tuesday that the US will slash troop levels in Afghanistan and Iraq to...

Pfizer Inc said on Wednesday that final results from the late-stage trial of its COVID-19 vaccine show it was 95% effective, adding it had the required two-months of safety data and would apply for emergency U.S. authorization within days. The drugmaker said efficacy of the vaccine...

Fresh from the success of creating the world’s largest free trade region, China’s President Xi Jinping will be among the speakers on Thursday heralding a Asia-Pacific virtual summit that U.S. President Donald Trump has decided to skip. Last week, 15 countries signed the Regional...

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan on Wednesday unveiled a six-month action plan he said was designed to ensure his country’s democratic stability even as the make-up of the government was in flux. Pashinyan has rejected calls from opponents and protesters to resign over what they say...

US President Donald Trump fired the country’s top cybersecurity official on Tuesday over a statement he made about the Nov. 3 presidential election. In a tweet, Trump said that Chris Krebs, the director of the Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security...

The US on Tuesday welcomed a cessation of hostilities between Armenia and Azerbaijan regarding the Karabakh conflict, with a recent Russia-brokered deal to end the fighting.  Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement that Washington called for an end to the violence from the...

The first results are out on vaccine trials which aim to provide immunity against the novel coronavirus. There is much to be optimistic about. US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and German biotechnology firm BioNTech, co-founded by Turkish scientist Ugur Sahin, announced that their vaccine...

President Donald Trump may withdraw nearly all U.S. troops from Somalia as part of a global pullback that could see major reductions in Afghanistan and a slight drawdown in Iraq, U.S. officials told Reuters on Tuesday. The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that nothing...

President-elect Joe Biden will focus on shaping his core White House team on Tuesday while outgoing President Donald Trump presses on with his increasingly tenuous legal fight to reverse his loss in the U.S. election. Biden's senior campaign staff have been discussing their roles in the...

The United States' top infectious disease scientist on Monday hailed early trial results from Moderna's Covid-19 vaccine as "stunningly impressive," and said the findings were an emphatic validation of experimental mRNA technology that some had doubted. In an interview with AFP, Anthony...

A senior Chinese official on Tuesday backed calls to "reform" Hong Kong's judiciary, in a landmark speech signalling Beijing's determination to assert more control over the city's independent legal system. Semi-autonomous Hong Kong owes much of its success to a transparent and...

An Islamist group on Tuesday called off violent protests over cartoons of Prophet Mohammad saying the Pakistani government has endorsed boycotting French products, a spokesman for the group said. Thousands of Islamists clashed with police on the main road into Pakistan's capital Islamabad...

The Donald Trump era may be coming to an end. But European Union ministers meeting this week to discuss the future of the continent’s defence will say the lesson has been learned: Europe needs to be strong enough to fight on its own. EU foreign and defence ministers meeting by...

Ethiopia resisted international pressure for mediation in a war in the country’s north on Monday as its air force bombed the Tigrayan capital Mekelle, according to diplomatic and military sources. Hundreds have died, 25,000 refugees have fled to Sudan and there have been reports of...

President Donald Trump’s new Pentagon leadership team has not yet signalled an imminent, total withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, raising expectations among allies that Trump might settle for only a partial reduction this year, sources said. Trump fired his defense secretary, Mark...

For the second time this month, there's promising news from a COVID-19 vaccine candidate: Moderna said Monday its shots provide strong protection, a dash of hope against the grim backdrop of coronavirus surges in the U.S. and around the world. Moderna said its vaccine appears to be 94.5%...

Pakistan authorities sealed off a major road into the capital Islamabad for a second day Monday as a far-right religious party held fresh anti-France protests. A rally in the neighboring city of Rawalpindi which attracted up to 5,000 people on Sunday spilled over into Monday, with around a...

The Turkish Presidency on Monday submitted a motion to the parliament to deploy Turkish troops in Azerbaijan. The motion, which was submitted by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government, seeks to deploy troops for peacekeeping in Upper Karabakh region for one year. The...

President-elect Joe Biden on Monday will focus on plans for reviving a pandemic-battered U.S. economy as he prepares for his new administration, while President Donald Trump vowed to press ahead with long-shot court challenges to the election results. With the number of coronavirus cases...