Berlin (dpa), Dec 31, 2018-  German Chancellor Angela Merkel in her annual New Year’s speech published on Sunday, called on her fellow countrymen to brace for Germany’s growing responsibility on the international stage and a further

MOSCOW AFP Dec31, 2018-   Four people were killed and nearly 70 unaccounted for after a gas explosion tore through a residential building in Russia on Monday, leaving hundreds without a home in freezing temperatures on New Year’s Eve.

SEOUL (Reuters), DECEMBER 31, 2018 -  North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has sent a “conciliatory message” to U.S. President Donald Trump amid stalled nuclear negotiations, South Korea’s Chosun Ilbo newspaper reported on Monday.&n

The government shutdown will not be lifted before the New Year after the Senate graveled out of session until next week and Republican House leaders told members there would be no votes on Friday.     

SEOUL (Reuters), DECEMBER 28, 2018- The personal information of nearly 1,000 North Koreans who defected to South Korea has been leaked after unknown hackers got access to a resettlement agency’s database, the South Korean Unification Ministry s

 DHAKA AFP Dec28, 2018- Bangladesh’s authorities have severely restricted internet services across the country in an effort to fight ”ahead of Sunday’s general election, an official said.     

HIVARGAON/MUJAHIDPUR, India (Reuters), DECEMBER 28, 2018- A drop in the price of onions has led to the ouster of governments at Indian elections in the past. Now, prices of the staple have collapsed, and many impoverished farmers are saying they will

GENEVA AFP Dec27, 2018 - Three United Nations human rights experts expressed “deep concern” Thursday over a controversial citizens register in India’s Assam state, warning it could inflame ethnic tensions in an already fractious reg

Indonesia raised the alert level for the erupting Anak Krakatau volcano to the second-highest today, and ordered all flights to avoid the area, just days after it triggered a tsunami that killed at least 430 people.     

BAGHDAD AFP Dec27, 2018  -  President Donald Trump’s lightning Christmas visit with US troops in Iraq has triggered questions and criticism in a country deeply divided over Washington’s influence since the 2003 US invasion. 

Tel Aviv/Cologne (dpa), 27 Dec 2018 -  UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, “strongly objects” to its inclusion on the Simon Wiesenthal Centre’s end-of-year list of the &ldq

Russia, (rt.com), 27 Dec, 2018 - The volume of trade between Russia and the European Union (EU) has been steadily growing since the beginning of 2017 despite mutual sanctions introduced almost five years ago, said Russian ambassador to the EU Vladimi

(Daily Mail), 27 December 2018 - Russia has told Turkey to let the Syrian government take back areas vacated by US troops with Ankara preparing to clear Kurdish fighters from a town in the war-torn country.    

Search efforts for the 154 people still missing in the disaster zone of the deadly tsunami that has killed at least 429 people continued on Tuesday, with some officials admitting privately that the chance of finding more survivors alive was slim. &nb

KABUL AFP Dec 25, 2018 - An hours-long gun and suicide attack on a Kabul Government compound killed at least 43 people, the Health Ministry said Tuesday, making it one of the deadliest assaults on the Afghan capital this year.     

SEOUL AFP Dec 25, 2018 - North Korea on Tuesday hit back at a latest UN resolution that condemned Pyongyang’s rights abuses, calling it a “serious... provocation” that would undermine peace efforts on the Korean peninsula.  &nb

TRIPOLI, December 25, 2018 (Reuters) - Suicide attackers hit the headquarters of Libya’s Foreign Ministry in Tripoli on Tuesday, opening fire before blowing themselves up inside, a security source said.  

Vatican City (dpa), Dec 25, 2018 - Pope Francis made a global appeal for “fraternity” in a traditional “Urbi et Orbi” (to the city and to the world) Christmas Day message.  

More deadly tsunamis could strike the Indonesian coastline in the coming days, authorities warn, as the volcano which triggered the weekend’s devastating wave continues to erupt.     

Vatican(Daily Mail), 19 December 2018 -  Pope Francis has said Christmas cannot just be about swapping presents and indulging in a massive consumer binge.   

By · Philip Rucker, Dan Lamothe, Josh Dawsey, (c) 2018, The Washington Post, Dec 24, 2018 -   President Donald Trump, who aides said has been seething about news coverage of Defense Secretary Jim Mattis’ pointed resignation let

New Delhi, (Hindustan Times) Dec 19, 2018 -   Indian drug inspectors have seized samples of Johnson & Johnson’s baby powder from a plant in Himachal Pradesh, an industry source said on Wednesday, following a Reuters report the com

By Venus Feng, Yoojung Lee, Blake Schmidt (c) 2018, Bloomberg, Dec 21, 2018 -  The 128 people in Asia with enough money to crack the 500-member Bloomberg Billionaires Index lost a combined $137 billion in 2018, the first time wealth in the regio

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis resigned Thursday after clashing with President Donald Trump over the withdrawal of US troops from Syria and Afghanistan, saying in a parting letter that the presid

WASHINGTON (Reuters), DECEMBER 21, 2018 - President Donald Trump is planning to withdraw more than 5,000 of the 14,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, a U.S. official said on Thursday, in the latest sign Trump’s patience is thinning with America&rs

BEIJING (Reuters), DECEMBER 21, 2018 - A former Canadian diplomat detained in China is being denied legal representation and is not allowed to turn the lights off at night, people familiar wi

President Donald Trump took to Twitter Thursday to defend his sudden announcement to pull U.S. troops out of Syria – and warned ISIS it was ‘doomed!’ if the terror group hit at the U.S.     

N.Korea (Daily Mail), 20 December 2018 - North Korea says that it will never unilaterally give up its nuclear weapons unless the United States first removes what Pyongyang called a nuclear threat.     

The U.N. Security Council is considering a draft resolution that asks U.N. chief António Guterres to submit proposals by the end of the month on how to monitor a ceasefire agreed by Yemen’s warring parties for the key port city of Hodeid

REUTERS, 18th DECEMBER, 2018- President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday that there was nothing to stop Russia and the United States agreeing that other countries could join the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty signed by Washington and Moscow d