(BEIRUT) — Syrian President Bashar Assad said in a newspaper interview Saturday he won’t step down and will instead “face the storm,” raising new doubts about a U.S-Russian effort to get Assad and his opponents to negotiate an end to the country’s civil war.
In the Syrian capital Damascus, meanwhile, a powerful explosion went off in …
(MOSCOW) — Part of an airliner carrying more than 130 people caught fire as it was landing in Moscow, and passengers evacuated the plane by jumping off one of its wings and shooting down an evacuation slide.
The Emergencies Ministry says none of the passengers and crew members were injured by the fire on the landing gear of the …
(SEOUL, South Korea) — North Korea fired three short-range guided missiles into its eastern waters on Saturday, a South Korean official said. It routinely tests such missiles, but the latest launches came during a period of tentative diplomacy aimed at easing tensions.
The North fired two missiles Saturday morning and another in the …
(PARIS) — French President Francois Hollande has signed a law authorizing gay marriage and adoption by same-sex couples, after months of nationwide protests and wrenching debate.
His signature means the first gay marriages may be celebrated in France within about 10 days. Hollande’s office said he signed the bill Saturday morning, a …
(BAGHDAD) — Bombs struck Sunni areas in Baghdad and surrounding areas Friday, killing at least 76 people in the deadliest day in Iraq in more than eight months, officials said, as a spike in violence has raised fears the country could be on the path to a new round of sectarian bloodshed.
The attacks in Baghdad and surrounding areas …
(MILAN) — Silvio Berlusconi‘s private disco featured not only aspiring show girls performing striptease acts as sexy nuns and nurses, but also dressed as President Barack Obama and a prominent Milan prosecutor whom the
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(MAIDUGURI, Nigeria) — Soldiers in northeast Nigeria shelled suspected camps of Islamic extremists in the first military action of a new offensive against the insurgents, killing at least 21 people, a security official said Friday.
The fighting was in the Sambisa Forest Reserve, just south of Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state, …
(BEIRUT) — Rights activists have found torture devices and other evidence of abuse in government prisons in the first Syrian city to come under the control of the opposition, Human Rights Watch said in a report Friday.
Raqqa, in eastern Syria, was overrun in late February by rebels fighting to topple President Bashar Assad. The …
(PESHAWAR, Pakistan) — Bombs exploded outside two mosques in a village in northwestern Pakistan on Friday, killing at least 13 people, underlining the challenge of militant violence facing a new government led by Nawaz Sharif set to take power.
The blasts at the two Sunni Muslim mosques also wounded 45 people, said tribal police …
(BEIRUT) — A six-member U.N. team led by a former Syrian planning minister is drawing up a comprehensive postwar reconstruction plan even as the country’s civil war rages on with no apparent end in sight.
A joint U.S.-Russian push to bring together Syria’s political opposition and representatives of President Bashar Assad’s regime …
(ABOARD A TAIWANESE DESTROYER IN THE BASHI STRAIT) — Taiwan‘s military on Thursday conducted exercises in waters between Taiwan and the Philippines, close to the spot where Filipino coast guard personnel opened fire on a Taiwanese fishing vessel last week, killing a 65-year-old-crew member.
Two Lafayette frigates, one Kidd-class …
(KANDAHAR, Afghanistan) — Sitting on a dirty straw mat on the parched ground of southern Afghanistan, Masooma sank deeper inside a giant black shawl. Hidden from view, her words burst forth as she told her side of what happened to her family sometime before dawn on March 11, 2012.
According to Masooma, an American soldier wearing a …
(BEIRUT) — Syrian government troops on Thursday flushed out rebels who had stormed a prison compound in the northern city of Aleppo in a bid to free hundreds of political prisoners inside.
The forced retreat was the latest setback for fighters seeking to topple President Bashar Assad, whose forces have been gaining ground in the …
