President  Barack Obama  said on Friday he is considering new ways to pressure the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad as he pledged fresh U.S. assistance to Jordan's King Abdullah, whose country is reeling from the Syrian civil war. Obama and Abdullah held...

Three years after Bahraini security forces subdued a popular uprising, the ruling family has launched a new dialogue with opponents to tackle simmering discontent; but a breakthrough remains elusive. Bahrain's fellow conservative Gulf Arab states and the West have a stake in the...

   Syria   has relinquished only 11 percent of its chemical weapons in three shipments and is on track to miss a politically-loaded midyear deadline to completely destroy the toxic stockpile, sources told Reuters on Friday. Syria  should already have handed...

Russia  and NATO are drawing up plans for a rare joint naval operation in the Mediterranean to protect the U.S. ship that will destroy Syria's deadliest chemical weapons, officials and other sources said. The operation would be a symbolic breakthrough at a time when...