Republican Senator Jeff Flake has said US President Donald Trump’s “impulse to threaten and scapegoat” could turn the US into “backward people”.Flake, in a dramatic speech on the Senate floor, launched a fierce attack on the US president, saying American politics had become hardened to “reckless, outrageous and undignified behavior from the White House”, Sky […]

The area controlled by the self-styled Islamic State terrorist group in Syria has been reduced to less than 5%, the Russian Defense Ministry said, but human rights groups remain concerned about the “dire humanitarian situation” in Raqqa, captured from militants by US-backed militias.“Islamic State currently controls less than 5% of Syrian territory,” Russian Defense Minister […]

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier told Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday he was unhappy about the state of relations between Moscow and Berlin and that both sides needed to work to improve it.The first visit to Russia by a German president since 2010 happened as relations remain strained over Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea and […]

At least 28 people, including 11 soldiers and 17 suspected Taliban militants were killed in two separate incidents in western Farah and Herat provinces Tuesday night. Farah governor’s spokesman, Nasir Mehri, told Anadolu Agency Taliban had attacked an Afghan Army base in Pusth Rod District at around midnight that resulted in the deaths of nine […]

Combating terrorism and India’s role in war-torn Afghanistan dominated talks between US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and his Indian counterpart Wednesday as Tillerson highlighted the US President Donald Trump administration’s new strategy for South Asia.Indian Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj said that India had agreed to hold talks on Afghanistan with Washington and Kabul, AP […]

Iraqi Kurdish leaders offered Wednesday to freeze the outcome of last month’s vote for independence, taking a step back in a major crisis that prompted Baghdad to seize swathes of disputed territory.The offer came as world powers scrambled to avert any further escalation of the conflict between the key allies in the fight against the […]

Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov has commented on the new Turkish operation in Idlib, which is the second Turkish military campaign in the Syrian territory.“The Turkish side is responsible for ensuring security in the de-escalation zone. … Without a doubt, the member states to the Astana agreements coordinate their actions on the issue of establishment of […]

Moscow, after its first reading of the report from the UN and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons’ Joint Investigative Mechanism on Syria, believes that there are flaws in the methodology and that biased evidence was used, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told RIA Novosti.Ryabkov said conclusions were derived from “all the […]

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 […]