(Reuters) - At least 126 people, most of them children, were killed on Tuesday when Taliban gunmen stormed a school in the Pakistani city of Peshawar, taking hundreds of students hostage in the bloodiest insurgent attack in the country in years. Troops surrounded the building...

At least 104 students have been killed and scores more injured by gunmen in a siege on an army hospital in Pakistan's northwestern city of Peshawar on Tuesday.   Perwaiz Khattakh, the chief minister for the state of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where Peshawar is located,...

(Reuters) - Heavily armed Australian police stormed a Sydney cafe on Tuesday and freed a number of hostages being held there at gunpoint, in a dramatic end to a 16-hour siege in which three people were killed and four wounded. New South Wales police said two men, aged 34 and...

Police have locked down the centre of Australia's biggest city after a gunman walked into a café in downtown Sydney, took hostages and forced them to display an Islamic flag. It is not yet known how many people are inside the Lindt Chocolat Cafe in Martin Place, but...

  Five hostages have escaped from a Sydney cafe besieged by a gunman during Monday morning rush hour, according to local media. The remaining hostages – who include men and women but no children -- are being ordered to stand with their hands against the windows in...

A military base of the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) was attacked on Sunday by suspected militants from the Al-Qaeda-linked Al-Shabaab movement. "An AMISOM base was attacked by several mortar shells tonight," Col. Mohamed Maalin, a Somalia Police Force member, told...

Suspected Taliban militants shot dead 12 anti-landmine workers in  Afghanistan ’s southern Helmand province Saturday, Afghan police said. According to provincial police spokesman Farid Ahmad Obaid,  suspected Taliban riding motorbikes opened fire on the workers at...

The scourge of HIV/ AIDS is being overlooked in South Sudan, activists warn, as the government and civil society remain focused on other problems caused by the country's year-long political crisis. "The problem is, there's no proper system of treatment for those living with...

 As details from the summary of a  6,000-page U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee report on torture and detention methods used by the CIA surface, politicians, leaders and critics have reacted with outrage. The report summary disclosed not only that "waterboarding"...

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry sought to spur climate envoys to action Thursday as the annual UN summit entered its final phase with an accord far off. The world faced a “massive moral failure of historical consequences” if it failed to act decisively in reining in climate...

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and his Italian counterpart Matteo Renzi agreed to work together to find a solution for the conflict in Libya. "We will jointly work towards a comprehensive reconciliation process in Libya that will bring together all the...

MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Al Shabaab militants have beheaded two Somali policewomen, prompting a policeman to kill five women linked to the group who were being held for a possible swap of captives, an official said on Wednesday. The...

( Newsweek )- The Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday released the executive summary of a long-awaited report on the Central Intelligence Agency’s use of so-called “enhanced interrogation techniques,” or what President Barack Obama has referred to as “torture.” The CIA...

At least 21 people have been killed, many of whom in central Philippines, after Typhoon Hagupit hit, Red Cross officials say. "We have confirmed reports that 21 people died in Eastern Samar, 16 of them in Borongan," said Gwendolyn Pang, secretary-general of the Philippine National...

(Reuters) - Six men held for more than a decade at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba , were flown to Uruguay for resettlement on Sunday, the latest step in a slow-moving push by President Barack Obama's administration to close the facility. The release of four...

(Reuters) - The Pyongyang government's state-run media said the cyber attack on Sony's Hollywood studio may have been the work of pro-North Korean supporters in a report on Sunday that dismissed charges that the country itself was to blame as "wild rumor." "The hacking into...

(Reuters) - A fifth day of nationwide protests against police violence was set to begin on Sunday after overnight clashes in two West Coast cities as New York's police commissioner said an internal investigation into a chokehold death could last four months. After a relatively...

(Reuters) - At least 70 Ethiopians drowned when a boat used by smugglers to transport illegal migrants to Yemen sank in the Red Sea in rough weather, security authorities in the western part of the country said on Sunday. Human traffickers often use unseaworthy boats to smuggle...

At least 18 people died and 76 others were rescued Friday when an Italian coast guard discovered a raft packed with illegal migrants 100 miles (160 kilometers) off the coast of Lampedusa, officials said. One survivor remains in critical condition. “We mourn these victims...

President Barack Obama on Friday officially named former deputy defense secretary Ashton Carter as his pick to lead the U.S. military. Obama said Carter is “rightly regarded as one of our nation’s foremost national security leaders” during an...