At least four people were killed and another seven injured Thursday in a car bomb attack in Syria’s northern city, a pro-opposition Syrian civil defense official said. The incident took place when a car bomb went off near a school in Azaz city, Haytham Jaber, the Syrian civil defense...

President Emmanuel Macron pledged on Thursday to start increasing French military spending from next year in order to reach a target of two percent of economic output by 2025, despite budgetary constraints. "It's a considerable effort, considering the current context of budgetary...

Frustrated that China has not done more to rein in North Korea, the Trump administration could impose new sanctions on small Chinese banks and other firms doing business with Pyongyang within weeks, two senior U.S. officials said. The U.S. measures would initially hit Chinese entities...

Washington pledged an additional $119 million for humanitarian aid in Iraq, the U.S. special envoy for the coalition against Daesh (ISIS) said at a meeting on Thursday, following the recapture of Mosul from Islamic State militants this month. At the anti-Daesh coalition meeting in...

British Prime Minister Theresa May has avoided the thorny issue of Gibraltar during talks with King Felipe VI of Spain. May's office says she did not bring up the rocky outcrop at the tip of the Iberian peninsula, which Britain has controlled for three centuries against Spain's wishes....

( The Guardian )- Ali Muhammad’s entire family are sick. In the months since his home district of Abs in northern Yemen was hit by a cholera outbreak, he has lost both parents and all six of his children have fallen ill. “Cholera is everywhere,” he said, according to a testimony provided by...

Gaza's power distribution company says supplies to the territory's 2 million residents have dropped to unprecedented lows, with blackouts lasting for more than 24 hours. While the Palestinian enclave needs at least 400 megawatts of power a day, only 70 megawatts were available as of late...

( The New Arab )- An American man who played a key role in anti-capitalist "Occupy" protests was killed fight the Islamic State group outside the Syrian city of Raqqa last week. Robert Grodt - also known by his nom de guerre Demhat Goldman - volunteered as a medic with the Kurdish People's...

When the French and German governments meet on Thursday in a joint cabinet meeting in Paris, the big prize will be any progress harmonizing their tax systems as advances on broader euro zone reform look unlikely. The two countries are due to launch a 1 billion euro ($1.14 billion) fund to...

Eight months of investigations into allegations that Russian-sponsored hackers attempted to influence last year's U.S. presidential election campaign have yielded no facts, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Thursday. Addressing a think-tank audience in Berlin, Lavrov said the...

 Britain published legislation Thursday to sever political, financial and legal ties with the European Union, an important step towards Brexit but one which the opposition said it would challenge. The Repeal Bill is central to the government's plan to exit the EU in 2019, disentangling...

Syria's government and opposition negotiators could soon hold face-to-face talks for the first time, U.N. mediator Staffan de Mistura said on Thursday, the penultimate day of a round of peace talks in Geneva. He did not expect the opposition High Negotiations Committee (HNC) to unite with...

(Zaman Al Wasl)- U.S.-led airstrikes killed a mother and her two children in Hasaka province while three more people lost their lives in a road mine explosion in the northern countryside, activists said Thursday. The U.S.-led airstrikes struck the village of al-Sada al-Gharbiya,...

(Zaman Al Wasl)- “Her blood equals that of your father al-Hariri,” said the Khalid al-Dhaher, a member of parliament for Akar, directing his comments at the prime minister Saad al-Hariri during a speech al-Dhaher gave in his house in Tripoli on Wednesday.  In a rebellious...

(Zaman Al Wasl)- No Friends in Refuge Land tells the story of displacement from a place and land of fighting fronts to a place of safety through the journeys of three families that migrated from Damascus Suburbs to al-Quneitra province. The irony lies in the fact these same...

(Zaman Al Wasl)- Ahrar al-Sham on Wednesday has arrested 32 ISIS militants following a week of major campaign to uproot the Islamic State from northern Idlib province, local activists said. The Islamist alliance that led by former al Qaeda group, Fateh al-Sham, and A hrar al-Sham said...

 Israeli police questioned a close confidante and cousin of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday over his involvement in the purchase of German submarines. David Shimron, Netanyahu's cousin and his personal attorney, arrived for questioning following revelations that he...

A convoy of refugees began leaving the Lebanese border region for Syria on Wednesday, a security source said, the second group to return under an agreement brokered by the Lebanese Shi'ite group Hezbollah. The Lebanese army escorted around 250 people out of the border town of Arsal. The...

U.S. military advisors are operating inside the city of Raqqa, Daesh's (ISIS) last major bastion in Syria, a U.S. official said Wednesday. The troops, many of them special operations forces, are working in an "advise, assist and accompany" role to support local fighters from the Syrian...

( Foreign Policy )- A confidential U.S.-Russian cease-fire agreement for southwestern Syria that went into effect Sunday calls for barring Iranian-backed foreign fighters from a strategic stretch of Syrian territory near the borders of Israel and Jordan, according to three diplomatic sources....