World News

Saudi Arabia has reached out to its ally Pakistan to acquire “off-the-shelf” atomic weapons as a nuclear arms race begins to shape up with Shiite rival Iran.

Seventeen months before President Obama dismissed the Islamic State as a “JV team,” a Defense Intelligence Agency report predicted the rise of the terror group and likely establishment of a caliphate if its momentum was not reversed.

Islamic State militants have taken the capital of Iraq’s largest province, the city of Ramadi, as Iraqi elite special forces soldiers flee.

President Obama’s infamous “red line” in Syria seems to have been fully erased.

Russia’s envoy to the NATO alliance said on Friday that Moscow will bolster military forces in occupied Ukraine, and is not banned from deploying nuclear arms in Crimea.

When President Obama began making the case for a deal with Iran that would delay its ability to assemble an atomic weapon, his first argument was that a nuclear-armed Iran would set off a “free-for-all” of proliferation in the Arab world. “It is almost certain that other players in the region would feel it necessary to get their own nuclear weapons,” he said in 2012, the New York Times reported.

If it seems like earthquakes and erupting volcanoes are happening more frequently, that’s because they are. Looking at global magnitude six (M6) or greater from 1980 to 1989 there was an average of 108.5 earthquakes per year, from 2000 to 2009 the planet averaged 160.9 earthquakes per year: that is a 38.9% increase of M6+ earthquakes in recent years.

Iran threatened to declare war on any country that attacks a ship it says contains humanitarian aid currently making its way to Yemen, accompanied by warships. The warning came amid heightened tensions after the Islamic Republic seized a cargo ship last month.

Gulf nation leaders joined President Barack Obama at the White House Wednesday to warn of the risks of completing a nuclear deal with Iran. Obama was seeking to convince his counterparts of the potential benefits for the region.

A major earthquake has hit Nepal near the Chinese border between the capital of Kathmandu and Mount Everest less than three weeks after the country was devastated by a quake.

An antibiotic-resistant “superbug” strain of typhoid fever has spread globally, driven by a single family of the bacteria, called H58, according to the findings of a large international study.

At first sight, things look very different now. When President Xi Jinping of China took pride of place next to Vladimir Putin of Russia on Saturday, they looked like any other modern world leaders: pragmatic men-in-suits, full of smiles, temporary possessors of power rather than dictators-for-life.

NATO countries are staging massive air, land and sea exercises across Russia’s northern borders this month in response to warnings from the Kremlin and strategic analysts that President Vladimir Putin’s threats to use nuclear weapons are more than bluster.

North Korea said on Saturday it had successfully test-fired a ballistic missile from a submarine, a step that would mark significant progress in the secretive state’s military capabilities.

The Obama administration is quietly pushing Sunni Arab allies in the Persian Gulf to create an advanced missile defense system, and is preparing to ramp up sophisticated weapons sales to Saudi Arabia in an effort to ease regional fears over a potential nuclear deal with Iran.

Hezbollah’s leader said on Tuesday his Lebanon-based militant group will launch an attack inside Syria against al-Qaida-linked insurgents in the mountain region along the countries’ border.

A shadowy new pro-government force has been deployed in the embattled Yemeni port city of Aden, according to reports Sunday, sparking speculation that ground troops from the Saudi-led coalition may have joined the battle against Houthi rebels and their allies.

Russian President Vladimir Putin ratified an accord Saturday to set up a $100-billion reserve fund for the so-called BRICS — the five leading emerging economies that include Russia, China, Brazil, India and South Africa.

U.S. Navy warships will now accompany U.S.-flagged commercial vessels that pass through the Strait of Hormuz due to concerns that ships from Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps navy could try to seize a U.S. cargo ship.

Britain has informed a United Nations sanctions panel of an active Iranian nuclear procurement network linked to two blacklisted firms, according to a confidential report by the panel seen by Reuters.