Russian President Vladimir Putin has taken part in major military drills of Russian nuclear forces and personally directed the test-firing of four intercontinental ballistic missiles as part of the exercises, the Kremlin said Friday.Putin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said the drills Thursday involved all elements of the military’s nuclear triad —nuclear submarines, strategic bombers and a […]

Rohingya refugees fleeing Myanmar have testified that a “consistent, methodical pattern” of killings, torture, rape and arson is taking place, United Nations human rights investigators said on Friday after a first mission to Bangladesh.The fact-finding team, led by former Indonesian attorney general Marzuki Darusman, said the death toll from the Myanmar army’s crackdown following Rohingya […]

Iraqi and Kurdish forces have agreed to a ceasefire in northern Iraq, according to Iraqi and US sources.Iraqi parliament member Abbas al-Bayati told Al Jazeera on Friday that the US-led coalition had brokered an agreement between Kurdish Peshmerga and Iraqi forces, in which they would halt hostilities on both sides of the borders separating Kurdish […]

British Prime Minister Theresa May is concerned by a newspaper report describing a culture of sexual harassment among lawmakers and their staff working in parliament, her spokeswoman said on Friday.The report in the Sun newspaper follows dozens of allegations against Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein which have prompted hundreds of thousands of women around the world […]

Washington’s goal “is not war” as it seeks to ease high military tension with Pyongyang, US Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis said Friday, standing at the heavily-fortified border between the two Koreas. Tension has flared on the Korean peninsula as US President Donald Trump and the North’s ruler Kim Jong-Un have traded threats of war […]

French President Emmanuel Macron faced demonstrations on the first day of his trip to the impoverished French territory of Guiana on Thursday where he arrived saying he was not “Father Christmas” bearing gifts from the state.The 39-year-old leader arrived Thursday in the South American territory, which borders northern Brazil, six months after a wave of […]

The Spanish government moved to impose direct rule over Catalonia on Friday, stripping the region of its autonomy less than an hour after its parliament declared independence in a stunning show of defiance.Although the Catalan declaration appears to be a doomed gesture, both sides’ moves take Spain’s worst political crisis in four decades to a […]

TEHRAN- Hamas’ security chief in the Gaza Strip was wounded in a car bombing on Friday in what the Palestinian resistance movement called a failed assassination attempt. The attack came as rival factions are trying to implement a new agreement meant to end a 10-year rift that has effectively split the Palestinian territories between Hamas […]

TEHRAN – Russian President Vladimir Putin hailed Russian forces’ contribution to Syria’s counter-terrorism campaign, saying over 90 percent of the Syrian territory has been liberated from the grip of militants. On Thursday, Putin thanked Russian military servicemen who are involved in Syria’s anti-terror fight, saying they have made a change in the overall situation. “It […]

TEHRAN – The forces of the Yemeni army and Popular Committees, in retaliatory attacks against the Saudi-led coalition, killed several Saudi servicemen in the kingdom’s southwestern provinces of Najran and Jizan. According to the Arabic-language al-Masirah television network, the Yemeni forces on Wednesday launched a military operation against the Saudi-led coalition positions near the kingdom’s […]