U.S. President Barack Obama faced growing pressure from Russia's Vladimir Putin and other world leaders on Thursday to decide against launching military strikes in Syria, which many of them fear would hurt the global economy and push up oil price

Iran's most powerful authority, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said the United States was using a chemical attack in Syria as a pretext to interfere in the country and warned it would suffer loss from its intervention, Mehr news agency reported on Thurs

President Barack Obama won the backing of key figures in the U.S. Congress, including Republicans, in his call for limited U.S. strikes on Syria to punish President Bashar al-Assad for his suspected use of chemical weapons against civilians.

President Barack Obama's efforts to persuade the U.S. Congress to back his plan to attack Syria were met with skepticism on Monday from lawmakers in his own Democratic Party who expressed concern the United States would be dragged into a new Midd

Syria has asked the United Nations to prevent "any aggression" against Syria following a call over the weekend by U.S. President Barack Obama for punitive strikes against the Syrian military for last month's chemical weapons attack.

France said on Friday it still backed action to punish Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government for an apparent poison gas attack on civilians, despite a British parliamentary vote against it.

President Barack Obama made the case on Wednesday for a limited military strike against Syria in response to last week's chemical weapons attack even as he faced new obstacles with British allies and U.S. lawmakers that could delay any imminent a

The United States and its allies geared up for a probable military strike against Syria that could come within days and would be the most aggressive action by Western powers in the Middle Eastern nation's two-and-a-half-year civil war.

The United States put Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on notice on Monday that it believes he was responsible for using chemical weapons against civilians last week in what Secretary of State John Kerry called a "moral obscenity."

U.N. inspectors left central Damascus on Monday to investigate sites of an alleged chemical weapons strike on the outskirts of the Syrian capital, a Reuters witness said, after calls from Western powers for military action to punish what may be the w

The United Nations demanded Syria give its chemical weapons experts immediate access on Thursday to rebel-held Damascus suburbs where poison gas appears to have killed hundreds just a few miles from the U.N. team's hotel.

More New Zealand milk products sold to China have been banned after elevated levels of nitrates were found, raising further concerns over quality and testing in the world's largest dairy exporter in the wake of a contamination scare earlier this

The Egyptian military deployed around vital installations in Cairo, state media reported, before "Friday of Anger" protests called by backers of deposed President Mohamed Mursi.

Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood called on followers to march in protest in Cairo on Thursday, after at least 421 people were killed in a security crackdown on the Islamist movement that has left the most populous Arab nation polarized and in turmoil.

Egyptian security forces killed at least 30 people on Wednesday when they cleared a camp of Cairo protesters who were demanding the reinstatement of deposed President Mohamed Mursi, his Muslim Brotherhood movement said.

Israel shot down a rocket aimed at its southern resort city of Eilat early on Tuesday, blowing it up in mid air near the border with Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, a military official said.

Supporters of deposed President Mohamed Mursi urged Egyptians to take to the streets on Monday to thwart any police crackdown on two Cairo protest camps that Islamists have manned for weeks.

Two Pakistani soldiers were wounded in an exchange of fire with Indian troops along the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir in the latest flare-up of tensions between the two nuclear-armed neighbors, officials on both sides said Wednesday.

Russian leader Vladimir Putin will meet Iran's newly elected president in Tehran next month to discuss restarting talks on the Islamic Republic's nuclear program, Russian and Iranian media reports said on Wednesday.

An elite team of 19 firemen were killed on Sunday in one of deadliest U.S. firefighting disasters in decades as flames raced through dry brush and grass in central Arizona, destroying scores of homes and forcing the evacuation of two towns.

The United States increased pressure on Russia on Monday to hand over Edward Snowden, the American charged with disclosing secret U.S. surveillance programs, and said it believed he was still in Moscow.

The White House on Monday said it expects the Russian government to "look at all options available" to expel former government contractor Edward Snowden back to the United States to face espionage charges.

Syrian forces and their Hezbollah militant allies seized control on Wednesday of the border town of Qusair, dealing a strategic defeat to rebel fighters battling for two years to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad.

A 2-mile-wide (3-km-wide) tornado tore through the Oklahoma City suburb of Moore on Monday, killing at least 51 people while destroying entire tracts of homes, piling cars atop one another, and trapping two dozen school children beneath rubble.

NEW DELHI — Doctors on Wednesday successfully carried out life-saving surgery on an Indian baby suffering from a rare disorder that caused her head to swell to nearly double its size, her neurosurgeon told AFP.

The United States was not given any warning before air strikes in Syria against what Western and Israeli officials say were weapons headed for Hezbollah militants, a U.S. intelligence official said on Sunday.

The White House said on Thursday the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad had probably used chemical weapons on a small scale in the country's civil war, but insisted that President Barack Obama needed definitive proof before he would t

China's leaders issued thinly veiled rebukes to North Korea for raising regional tensions, with the president saying no country should throw the world into chaos and the foreign minister warning that Beijing would not allow mischief on its doorst

After an effusive welcome in Israel, President Barack Obama traveled to the occupied West Bank on Thursday for talks with Palestinian leaders who accuse him of sidelining their dream of statehood.

China said on Monday U.S. plans to bolster missile defenses in response to provocations by North Korea would only intensify antagonism, and urged Washington to act prudently.