A petition to cancel Sydney's famous New Year's Eve fireworks and use the money to fight bushfires ringing the city has topped 260,000 signatures, but officials say the show will go on. Sydney is spending Aus$6.5 million ($4.5 million) on this year's fireworks display -- funds that the...

The streets of one of the first towns to rise up against the Syrian regime lie empty and broken after most of its residents fled an expected advance by Russia-backed Syrian forces. The retaking of Maraat al-Numan in Idlib province would be a deeply symbolic victory for the regime of...

 (Zaman Al Wasl)- Syria's Air Force has been mobilizing heavy weapons and attack helicopters in Hama military airbase and in the eastern region of Idlib province as the Russian-backed offensive has uprooted a quarter million people of their homes and killed 100 people since mid-December,...

The head of a hardline French trade union on Friday vowed to press on with a crippling strike that has dampened the festive season, with the stoppages becoming the longest-lasting such action since the 1980s. The strike against pension reforms championed by President Emmanuel Macron began...