MOSCOW (AP) — European airlines began skirting Belarus on Tuesday at the urging of the European Union, which also imposed new sanctions to punish the ex-Soviet nation's forced diversion of a passenger jet to arrest an opposition journalist. In unusually swift action at a summit in...

(AP) — A mysterious air base is being built on a volcanic island off Yemen that sits in one of the world's crucial maritime chokepoints for both energy shipments and commercial cargo. While no country has claimed the Mayun Island air base in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, shipping traffic...

Bashar al-Assad, once seen as a reformer but viewed by his many foes as a tyrant after a decade of war and repression, looks set to extend his family's dynastic rule of Syria further with an election on Wednesday. Branded "an animal" by the United States for gassing his people and a...

Campaign posters for Bashar al-Assad line the streets of Damascus, alongside those for two obscure rivals, but no one really doubts that Wednesday's election will extend his presidency despite 10 years of war that has left Syria in ruins. Ruled by his family for five decades, Syria is now...