The next round of negotiations between the Taliban and the Afghan government should be held at home, President Ashraf Ghani said Monday, backing calls to move the talks from Qatar. The warring sides have been engaged in direct talks since September at a luxury hotel in Doha, where the...

South Korea on Monday banned sending anti-Pyongyang leaflets into the North, in a move rights activists condemned as a violation of free speech and a "misguided strategy" to please the North Korean regime. Activist groups have long sent flyers critical of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un...

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on Monday that Tehran's missile programme was non-negotiable and that U.S. President-Elect Joe Biden is "well aware of it". Biden's victory has raised the possibility that Washington could rejoin a deal Iran reached with world powers in 2015, and he...

Google services, including YouTube, Gmail and Google Drive, were restored for most users on Monday, following a global outage that affected thousands. Google's website that logs outages said the services that were affected for nearly an hour should be restored for most users. The...

British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab called on authorities in Hong Kong to stop targeting Jimmy Lai on Monday after the democracy activist and media tycoon was charged under the city’s national security law. “The Hong Kong National Security Law breaches the internationally-binding Joint...

Hackers believed to be working for Russia have been monitoring internal email traffic at the U.S. Treasury and Commerce departments, according to people familiar with the matter, adding they feared the hacks uncovered so far may be the tip of the iceberg. The hack is so serious it led to a...

Barcelona will face Paris St Germain while title holders Bayern Munich are up against Italy's Lazio in the last 16 of the Champions League after UEFA's draw was held Monday. Premier League champions Liverpool will play last year's semifinalists RB Leipzig. Atletico Madrid will face...

US President Donald Trump has rejected a plan for early COVID-19 vaccines for the White House staff.  Trump's remarks came after multiple reports said that senior US government officials will lead the nation by getting vaccinated. "People working in the White House should receive...

Sitting in a room where Ali’s photos are hung everywhere, his father recalled the joy of his dead son when he knew that his sister has given birth to a baby boy. “He was full of happiness because his sister has given birth to a baby that looked like him” Abu-Alia said. His sister...

The United Arab Emirates has launched Covid-19 vaccinations in the capital Abu Dhabi, health officials said Monday, days after it approved the jab by Chinese drugs giant Sinopharm. The wealthy Gulf nation is one of the first countries to start widespread inoculation, after Britain became...

The U.S. Embassy in Khartoum said Monday that President Donald Trump's administration has removed Sudan from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism, a move that could help the African country get international loans to revive its battered economy and end its pariah status. The U.S....

Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister, Hassan Diab, has declined to be questioned by a judge who charged him and three former ministers with negligence over the Beirut port blast, an official source said on Monday. The charges brought by Judge Fadi Sawan last week drew strong criticism from...

An explosion rocked a Singapore-flagged oil tanker off the Saudi port city of Jeddah Monday, the vessel's owner said, in the latest apparent strike on energy sector targets in the kingdom. All 22 sailors aboard the tanker BW Rhine escaped unhurt after the blast struck just after midnight,...

Kuwait's emir on Monday approved a new cabinet that included new ministers of oil and finance for the OPEC member state which is mired in its worst economic crisis in decades. The previous government had resigned following parliamentary polls this month in which opposition candidates made...

A French militant wanted on an Interpol "red notice" has been caught by Turkish security forces trying to enter Turkey from Syria, the Turkish defence ministry said Monday. The individual known by the initials C.G. was detained while trying to reach the Turkish border town of Reyhanli, the...

Japan and South Korea grappled with surging coronavirus cases and growing public frustration on Monday as Japan’s prime minister tiptoed around a contentious travel subsidy programme while an anxious South Korean president warned of harsh curbs. Japan reported more than 3,000 new cases on...

Long a mere formality, a vote on Monday by members of the Electoral College to formally recognize Joe Biden as the next US president has taken on unusual import this year with Donald Trump stubbornly refusing to admit defeat. The results of the November 3 vote have been certified by each of...

Khouloud Rhimi sits sipping a latte with friends in Sidi Bouzid, ground zero of the Tunisian uprising, and laments 10 years of disappointment and economic woes. The town, which helped trigger a wave of revolts across the Arab world, now has a swimming pool, a plush new cafe where young men...

Turkey ended a nationwide weekend curfew early Monday aimed at helping to stem the spread of the coronavirus. The curfew began on Friday at 9 p.m. (1800GMT) and ended on Monday at 5 a.m. local time (0200GMT). President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Nov. 30 announced new coronavirus...

 The first of many freezer-packed COVID-19 vaccine vials made their way to distribution sites across the United States on Sunday, as the nation's pandemic deaths approached the horrifying new milestone of 300,000. The rollout of the Pfizer vaccine, the first to be approved by the...