(BBC)- Islamic State (IS) militants have raided government buildings in and around the Iraqi city of Kirkuk. Iraqi media reported that suicide bombers had attacked police stations and a power station, but that security forces had repelled the assaults. A news agency affiliated to IS...

(middle east eye)- The United Nations hopes to carry out the first medical evacuations from Aleppo on Friday, if the "humanitarian pause" in the Syrian army's Russian-backed assault on the city holds. Russia announced the ceasefire earlier this week as a "goodwill gesture," amid growing...

Gunmen wearing suicide vests attacked government targets in the Kurdish-controlled city of Kirkuk and killed 16 at an Iranian-run construction site further north on Friday as troops advanced on jihadist bastion Mosul. There was no immediate claim for the attacks but nearly all such raids...

 Tunisia's powerful UGTT labor union threatened on Thursday to hold a general strike and called protests against the government's plans to freeze public wage increases as part of measures to control the budget deficit. Under pressure from international lenders for reforms to cut spending,...