Two people were confirmed dead on Wednesday as heavy rains pounded southwest Japan, prompting flood and landslide warnings and orders for 670,000 people to seek safety. Nearly a million more people were advised to leave their homes after the country's weather agency raised the alert to its...

Israel launched an air strike against Gaza's Hamas rulers on Tuesday after militants in the strip fired a mortar round across the border, the army said. Witnesses in the coastal enclave told AFP that fire from an Israeli drone hit Hamas facilities east of Al-Bureij refugee camp. No...

Clashes between anti-government fighters and regime forces killed 51 combattants on both sides in northwestern Syria Tuesday, a war monitor said. Russia-backed regime fighters have for weeks been chipping away at the edges of the jihadist-run stronghold of Idlib -- a province that borders...

The scene, amid a sweeping reform drive, was a striking contrast to the days when religious police wielded unbridled powers and drove people out of malls and shops to enforce the Islamic world's only mandatory prayer-time shutdown. Last month Riyadh, keen to stimulate an economy hit by low...