The UN Security Council is struggling to agree a resolution seeking a ceasefire in Syria and has put back a vote until Saturday.  The vote has already been delayed several times since Thursday.  Russia wanted changes to a draft that calls for a 30-day calm to allow for aid...

SAO PAULO, Brazil: Brazil's president says he will not run in October presidential elections and maintains that a military intervention he recently ordered was not aimed at improving his low approval ratings. President Michel Temer was asked in a Friday interview with a Sao Paulo radio...

A former senior official in Donald Trump's 2016 U.S. presidential campaign, Rick Gates, pleaded guilty on Friday to conspiracy against the United States and lying to investigators, and is cooperating with a federal probe into Russia's role in the election. The office of Special Counsel...

Five Turkish warships threatened to engage an Italian drillship Friday and forced it to turn back after it tried to break a two-week blockade off Cyprus, Cypriot officials said. The drillship from Italy's energy giant Eni has been halted in the island's politically sensitive waters...

One of three people arrested on Tuesday in France in connection with Islamist attacks in the Spanish region of Catalonia in August was put under formal investigation on Friday while the other two were freed, a judicial source said. The man kept in custody over suspicions of being linked...

An initial inquiry suggested that a Palestinian whose beating by soldiers was caught on video died from tear gas inhalation, the Israeli military said Friday, ahead of a planned autopsy. However Channel 10 TV on Friday evening said the autopsy, attended by a Palestinian doctor, showed...

The U.S. will move its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem on May 14th -- the day the state of Israel was established and officially recognized by Washington in 1948. "We are planning to open the new U.S. Embassy to Israel in Jerusalem in May. The Embassy opening will coincide with...

The U.N. Security Council scheduled a vote Friday on a resolution demanding a 30-day cease-fire across Syria to deliver humanitarian aid to millions and evacuate the critically ill and wounded. The resolution would allow attacks directed at extremists from the Islamic State group and...

The German government says one of its citizens held in Turkey has been released, but must remain in the country. The foreign ministry's announcement Friday follows the release last week of German journalist Deniz Yucel, who had been detained in Turkey for over a year. Yucel was held on...

Myanmar's parliament has approved a budget of about $15 million for the construction of a fence and related projects along the border with Bangladesh in Rakhine state, from which about 700,000 members of its persecuted ethnic Rohingya Muslim minority have fled violence since last August....

President Donald Trump said Friday he is launching the "largest-ever" set of sanctions against North Korea. "Today I am announcing that we are launching the largest-ever set of new sanctions on the North Korean regime," Trump said in excerpts of a speech he was to deliver later on...

Russia is ready to vote for a U.N. Security Council draft resolution on a ceasefire in Syria, local news agencies cited Foreign Minister Lavrov as saying Friday. Lavrov also said, according to Interfax news agency, that the United States and its allies had refused to amend the...

Syrian government warplanes supported by Russia continued their relentless bombardment of the rebel-controlled eastern suburbs of Damascus for a sixth day Friday, killing nine people, opposition activists and a war monitor reported. The death toll from the past week climbed to more than 400....

The president on Friday highlighted the achievements of the ongoing military operation in Syria’s northwestern Afrin region, revealing that 415 square kilometers (160 square miles) of territory was now under control and over 1,800 terrorists had been neutralized. Speaking at a meeting...

The UN special envoy for Syria on Friday reiterated his call for immediate cease-fire amid "horrific" bombings in besieged Eastern Ghouta, a suburb of Damascus. Staffan De Mistura called on guarantor countries Turkey, Russia and Iran for an immediate meeting for re-establishing "tension...

The Turkish army struck a convoy entering Syria's Kurdish-held Afrin region, which Ankara said carried fighters and weapons but Kurdish forces said was made up of civilians entering with food and medicine. In a statement Friday, the Turkish military said a fleet of some 30-40 vehicles of the...

Syrian and allied forces pounded the rebel-held enclave of Eastern Ghouta for a sixth straight day Friday, killing at least nine people, a monitoring organization said. "The air strikes and the artillery fire are continuing on several towns in Eastern Ghouta," Rami Abdel-Rahman, the head of...

The U.N. Security Council will vote Friday at 4:00 p.m. local time, on a draft resolution demanding a 30-day ceasefire in Syria to allow for deliveries of humanitarian aid and medical evacuations, diplomats said. A slightly amended text was circulated to council members, but it was unclear...

The recent natural gas agreement on Monday between Israel and Egypt is more symbolic than viable with the aim of fabricating a gas market in Egypt to send a message that Jordan is not Israel's only market in the region, according to the director of hydrocarbons at the Paris-based Mediterranean...

The Doha-based International Union of Muslim Scholars (IUMS) on Thursday condemned the ongoing bombardment of Syria’s Eastern Ghouta district, a besieged suburb of Damascus, calling it a “massacre”. At least 250 civilians were reportedly killed there within the last three days....