World News

President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that Islamic State militants had seized nearly 700 hostages in part of Syria controlled by U.S.-backed forces and issued an ultimatum promising to execute 10 people every day.

Russia and Turkey agreed Thursday to allow opposition groups more time to exit Syria’s western Idlib province as they work to establish a demilitarized zone, the United Nations said.

President Donald Trump said Thursday it ‘certainly looks’ as though Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi is dead, and he threatened ‘very severe’ consequences if the Saudis are found to have murdered him.

The United States received a payment of $100 million from Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, the same day Secretary of State Mike Pompeo arrived in Riyadh to discuss the disappearance of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a State Department official confirmed Wednesday amid global calls for answers in the case.

Israel and the United States sent a secret military delegation to Ukraine to test the Russian-made S-300 missile defense system, which Moscow recently provided to Syria, Hadashot TV news reported Monday, citing Syrian and Russian news outlets.

The Islamic State remains ‘far from defeated,’ one of the nation’s top generals warned Tuesday, seeming to break with President Trump’s assertion that the terrorist group was ’99 percent’ beaten after four years of U.S.-led military action in Syria and Iraq.

European Union leaders gave themselves several more weeks – perhaps until the end of the year – to clinch a friendly divorce with Britain before their separation, after a Brexit summit Wednesday avoided any friction but also produced no tangible results.

Islamic State fighters trapped in Syria are putting up fierce resistance, using civilians as human shields, setting deadly booby traps, and hiding in underground tunnels, all the while frustrating efforts by U.S.-backed Syrian fighters to deal a final blow to the terrorist caliphate.

US President Donald Trump said Tuesday he had spoken with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and been assured that a ‘full’ probe into the disappearance of a critical journalist was underway.

Organizers of the annual Davos conference ranked the United States first in their ranking of the world’s most competitive economies for the first time in a decade Wednesday, saying the No. 1 spot reflects a new methodology and long-term factors more than recent policies of the Trump administration.

The Trump administration is formally notifying Congress that it plans to pursue trade agreements with the European Union, Japan and Britain.

The two Koreas agreed on Monday to begin reconnecting rail and road links, another step in an improving relationship in spite of U.S. concerns that the rapid North-South thaw could undermine efforts to press North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons.

The European Union on Monday unveiled a legal framework to allow sanctions against the use of chemical weapons.

The Saudi government is considering whether to say that rogue intelligence operatives murdered activist and writer Jamal Khashoggi by mistake inside the kingdom’s consulate in Istanbul earlier this month, multiple media outlets reported Monday.

A nuclear reactor that uses the same energy source as the sun is taking shape in the south of France.

Tens of thousands of people marched in Berlin Saturday in a protest against racism amid growing concern over xenophobic incidents in the east of the country.

The United Nations is warning that 13 million people in Yemen are facing starvation.

Rising US interest rates, tanking emerging market currencies and a bitter US-China trade spat could push the world towards its next financial crisis but there is still time to avert disaster, global finance chiefs have said.

Diplomats from both sides on Sunday scrambled to reach a deal on Brexit, ahead of an EU leaders’ summit in Brussels.

An Egyptian military court on Thursday sentenced 17 Islamic militants to death for involvement in deadly attacks on Christians, a rights lawyer said.