Kurdish forces were withdrawing from Kirkuk on Monday as Iraqi federal forces moved into the disputed city and seized oil fields and other infrastructure amid soaring tensions over last month’s Kurdish vote for independence.Kurdish officials accused the Iraqi army of carrying out a “major, multi-prong attack,” and reported heavy clashes on the city’s outskirts, but […]

China’s 88-million-strong Communist Party of China (CPC) will open its 19th National Congress in Beijing on Wednesday. This key event occurs once every five years to set the Party’s national policy goals and elect its top leadership. The congress will review the party’s work since 2012 and chart…

The situation on the Korean Peninsula “has reached a touch-and-go-point and nuclear war may break out at any moment,” North Korean Deputy Ambassador Kim In Ryong told the UN General Assembly’s disarmament committee on Monday.“The entire US mainland is within our firing range and if the US dares to invade our sacred territory even an […]

Taliban militants struck government targets in many provinces of Afghanistan on Tuesday, killing at least 69 people, including a senior police commander, and wounding scores of others.The deadliest attack hit a police training centre attached to the police headquarters in Gardez, main city of Paktia Province, Reuters reported.Two Taliban suicide car bombers paved the way […]

US-backed forces fighting the self-styled Islamic State terrorist group in Raqqa say “major military operations” in the city have ended and that the militants have lost control of their self-declared capital.The development marks a decisive victory in the fight against IS, though US officials said there were still pockets of resistance in the city, CNN […]

Catalonia refused on Tuesday to bow to the Spanish government’s demand that it renounce a symbolic declaration of independence, setting it on a political collision course with Madrid later this week. The Spanish government has threatened to put Catalonia, which accounts for a fifth of the economy, under direct central rule if its government does […]

One of Malta’s most renowned investigative journalists was killed Monday when a bomb exploded in her car just after she had left her home. Daphne Caruana Galizia ran a popular blog that exposed high-level corruption, including those at the very top.Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said on Monday that he would “leave no stone unturned” […]

The Baghdad government recaptured territory across the breadth of northern Iraq from Kurds on Tuesday, widening a sudden and dramatic campaign that has shifted the balance of power in the country almost overnight.In the second day of a lightning government campaign to take back towns and countryside from forces of the Kurdish autonomous region, Kurdish […]

Kurdish Peshmerga forces have retreated to positions they held in northern Iraq in June 2014 in response to an Iraqi army advance into the region after a Kurdish independence referendum rejected by Baghdad, a senior Iraqi commander said on Wednesday.An Iraqi military statement said government forces had taken control of Kurdish-held areas of Nineveh province, […]

Chinese President Xi Jinping on Wednesday laid out a confident vision for a more prosperous nation and its role in the world, stressing the importance of wiping out corruption and curbing industrial overcapacity, income inequality and pollution.Opening a critical Communist Party Congress, Xi pledged to build a “modern socialist country” for a “new era” that […]