Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei announced a new hardline head of one of the country's top oversight bodies on Monday, while former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad kept his seat despite a string of controversies. The appointment of former judiciary chief Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi...

Pakistan has kicked off a day of celebrations marking the country's 70 years of statehood and independence. The festivities began on Monday with gun salutes in the capital of Islamabad and in each of the four provincial capitals. In Islamabad, President Mamnoon Hussain hoisted the...

(Zaman Al Wasl)- The Syrian desert, also known as Badiya, has been witnessing a military incursion by Syrian regime and supporting militias in conjunction with fierce Syrian-Jordanian border battles. The regime seeks to control large areas linking it with Iraq and Jordan, especially as the...

The evacuation of a group of Syrian rebels and refugees from a border enclave in Lebanon back into Syrian territory started on Monday, Hezbollah-affiliated al-Manar TV reported. About 300 rebels from a group called Saraya Ahl al-Sham as well as about 3,000 refugees are to leave Lebanon under...

Tensions on the Korean peninsula eased slightly on Monday as South Korea's president said resolving Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions must be done peacefully and key U.S. officials played down the risk of an imminent war with North Korea. Concern that North Korea is close to achieving its goal...

The "Big Ben" bell in the British parliament's famous clock tower will cease its regular bongs at noon on Aug. 21, falling silent for most of the next four years while renovation works are carried out, the House of Commons said Monday. The hammers which have struck the 13.7 tonne bell every...

A suspected Daesh (ISIS) militant stabbed a Turkish police officer to death while being taken to the Istanbul police headquarters, the state-run Anadolu news agency said. The man, suspected of preparing a bomb attack, had been detained in an operation by anti-terrorism police. The wounded...

 (Zaman Al Wasl)- Former al-Qaeda group in Syria signed a truce with moderate group on Sunday, two days after storming its depots and robbing its arms in northern Aleppo province.   Nusra Front, now known as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, stormed Nour el-Din al-Zinki bases in the western...

( New York Times )- After surviving a siege by Syrian forces, Firas al-Rahim and his family were removed from a rebel-held area of Homs province in central Syria and taken to an impoverished territory in the northwest. But since Mr. Rahim, his wife and their four children arrived in Idlib...

As Brits brace for the upheaval that Brexit could bring, some are turning to Estonia’s e-residency digital ID program in order to keep doing business across the European Union. Using its knack for digital innovation to capitalize on the global explosion in e-commerce, the small cyber-savvy...

 A group of Twitter users will be indicted in Saudi Arabia on charges of harming public order for threatening the "safety and moderate ideology of society" through extremism, according to a statement on state news agency SPA. The country's chief prosecutor summoned the Twitter users on...

US-backed fighters fought pitched battles Sunday with Islamic State group jihadists inside their Syria bastion Raqa, an AFP correspondent said. The Syrian Democratic Forces, the Arab-Kurd alliance, first entered Raqa two months ago and have since captured more than half of the northern city,...

(Zaman Al Wasl)- Syrian regime forces backed by allied militias took 12 villages from the Islamic State east of Raqqa in a week of clashes, local activists said.    The regime army is racing with the US-led forces to capture territory from ISIS since both side have reached the...

Workers handling carry-on baggage checks at Barcelona's airport plan to go on a 24-hour strike at midnight Monday after an effort to prevent more chaos at the busy airport fell through. Catalonia's regional chief for labor issues, Dolors Bassa, said the security workers voted down the final...

Ame is taking a break. After four months of going into Caracas streets to demonstrate against Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro, she is frustrated and discouraged by the unending political crisis. This weekend, she ignored a call by the opposition for yet another rally, one that attracted...

Monsoon floods and landslides have killed at least 94 people across Nepal and India but officials fear that figure could rise sharply as rescuers search for dozens believed lost under mud and in submerged villages. Authorities Sunday upgraded the death toll from flash flooding across...

Israeli ex-president Moshe Katsav, jailed for rape and released in December, has been denied his request to have the conditions of his parole lifted, an official said on Sunday. Katsav had appealed to current President Reuven Rivlin to have the terms scrapped after a parole board rejected...

After dazzling Rio's imposing Maracana and Barcelona's storied Camp Nou, the world's most expensive footballer Neymar will be welcomed to French football on Sunday at Guingamp's humble 17,000-capacity Stade du Rouduorou in sleepy Brittany. With the transfer paperwork finally resolved, the...

Police say a drunken American man was punched by a passer-by as he gave the stiff-armed Nazi salute multiple times in downtown Dresden. Dresden police said Sunday the 41-year-old, whose name and hometown weren't given for privacy reasons, suffered minor injuries in the 8:15 a.m. Saturday...

 The Italian government on Sunday welcomed Libya's decision to bar foreign vessels from a stretch of water off its coast, as both countries struggle with a migrant crisis that has engulfed Europe in recent years. The comments from Italian Foreign Minister Angelino Alfano came as a...