Russia and China urged North Korea on Monday not to go ahead with a plan for its second rocket launch of 2012, with Moscow saying the launch would violate restrictions imposed by the U.N. Security Council.

Syrian rebels battled forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad just outside Damascus on Thursday, cutting access to its international airport, and Dubai-based Emirates airline and EgyptAir stopped flights to the Syrian capital.

Prime Minister David Cameron faces a no-win dilemma on Thursday when a far-reaching inquiry into British newspapers delivers its verdict on how to curb the excesses of the country's notoriously aggressive press.

An increase in Iran's higher-grade uranium stockpile is worrying but may arise from a bottleneck in making reactor fuel rather than a bid to quickly accumulate material that could be used for nuclear weapons, diplomats and experts say.

Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi will meet senior judges on Monday to try to ease a crisis over his seizure of new powers which has set off violent protests reminiscent of last year's revolution which brought him to power.

Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi triggered controversy on Thursday by issuing a decree likely to lead to retrials of Hosni Mubarak and his aides but which was compared to the ousted leader's autocratic ways.

A ceasefire between Israel and Gaza's Hamas rulers took hold on Thursday after eight days of conflict, although deep mistrust on both sides cast doubt on how long the Egyptian-sponsored deal can last.

Israeli air strikes shook the Gaza Strip and Palestinian rockets struck across the border as U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton held talks in Jerusalem in the early hours of Wednesday, seeking a truce that can hold back Israel's ground troop

The U.N. chief called for an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton headed to the region with a message that escalation of the week-long conflict was in nobody's interest.

Israel bombed dozens of suspected guerrilla sites in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip on Monday and Palestinian rocket fire from the enclave dropped off as international efforts to broker a truce intensified.

China's ruling Communist Party has lifted the lid on the opaque backroom selection of the country's top leaders, revealing that it had held a straw poll for the first time in May to decide on the membership of its top decision-making body.

A Hamas rocket killed three Israelis north of the Gaza Strip on Thursday, drawing the first blood from Israel as the Palestinian death toll rose to 13 and a military showdown lurched closer to all-out war with an invasion of the enclave.

The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, General John Allen, is under investigation for alleged inappropriate communication with a woman at the center of the scandal involving former CIA Director David Petraeus, a senior U.S. defense official said on T

Syria's fractious opposition finally put aside fierce arguments to rally behind a new leader within a new coalition that its Western and Arab backers hope can topple Bashar al-Assad and take over the country.

President Bashar al-Assad said he would "live and die" in Syria and warned that any Western invasion to topple him would have catastrophic consequences for the Middle East and beyond.

Having defeated Republican Mitt Romney at home, Barack Obama has no shortage of adversaries to grapple with abroad, including the governments of Iran, Syria and possibly China.

China's ruling Communist Party will this month unveil its new top leadership team, expected to again be an all-male cast of politicians whose instincts are to move cautiously on reform.

US presidential rivals Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are approaching the final day of their election battle in a frantic fight for swing state votes.

Anti-government rebels killed 28 soldiers on Thursday in attacks on three army checkpoints around Saraqeb, a town on Syria's main north-south highway, a monitoring group said.

Disgraced former top Chinese politician Bo Xilai can be expected to mount a feisty defense of himself when he finally comes to trial, but a guilty verdict is not in doubt, a lawyer who had a front seat at China's last major show trial said.

Millions across the U.S. Northeast stricken by massive storm Sandy will attempt to resume their normal lives on Wednesday as companies, markets and airports reopen despite grim projections of power and mass transit outages around New York for several

Palestinian militants held fire overnight on Thursday and Israel refrained from air strikes as an informal truce brokered by Egypt appeared to take hold following two days of violence along the Israel-Gaza border.

President Barack Obama scolded challenger Mitt Romney for being "all over the map" on foreign policy in their final presidential debate on Monday, but the Republican appeared to have passed the "commander-in-chief" test of looking

The Emir of Qatar entered the Gaza Strip on Tuesday for a visit that broke the isolation of it Islamist rulers, Hamas, but disappointed Israel and mainstream Palestinian leaders in the West Bank.

The Lebanese army promised decisive action to quell unrest linked to the Syria conflict as gunbattles flared in the capital Beirut and elsewhere on Monday after the assassination of a senior intelligence officer last week.

A Pakistani schoolgirl shot in the head by the Taliban has every chance of making a "good recovery", British doctors said on Monday as 14-year-old Malala Yousufzai arrived at a hospital in central England for treatment of her severe wounds.

The United Arab Emirates has dispatched a medical team to evacuate a Pakistani schoolgirl shot by the Taliban if doctors decide she should be taken abroad for treatment, a UAE news agency reported on Sunday.

Republican challenger Mitt Romney has pulled ahead of President Barack Obama in the race for the White House for the first time in more than a month and leads 45 percent to 44 percent among likely voters, according to a Reuters/Ipsos tracking poll re

Pakistani surgeons removed a bullet on Wednesday from a 14-year-old girl shot by the Taliban for speaking out against the militants and promoting education for girls, doctors said.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez pledged to deepen his socialist revolution after a comfortable election victory that could extend his divisive leadership of the OPEC nation to two decades.