World News

U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet in New York next week at a time of high tension in Europe and the Middle East, but the Kremlin and the White House disagreed on Thursday over the top priority for the talks.

At least 717 pilgrims from around the world were killed on Thursday in a crush outside the Muslim holy city of Mecca, Saudi authorities said, in the worst disaster to strike the annual haj pilgrimage for 25 years.

EU leaders pledged at least 1 billion euros ($1.1 billion) for Syrian refugees in the Middle East and closer cooperation to stem migrant flows into Europe at a summit described as less tense than feared after weeks of feuding.

The commander of Iran’s army said on Tuesday that the Islamic Republic would destroy Israel at all costs despite the recent nuclear deal aimed at reining in the country’s rogue behavior, according to comments by these officials.

Russia has started flying drone aircraft on surveillance missions in Syria, U.S. officials said on Monday, in what appeared to be Moscow’s first military air operations there since staging a rapid buildup at a Syrian air base.

The head of the UN atomic watchdog was granted access Sunday to a controversial Iranian military site where it is alleged covert research to build a nuclear bomb took place, AFP reported.

The Obama administration began carrying out the Iran nuclear deal Thursday as time expired on Republican efforts to derail it, appointing a senior diplomat to ensure that Tehran moves further away from bomb-making capability and outlining a months-long process before Western nations will start easing economic sanctions.

The Syrian military has recently started using new types of air and ground weapons supplied by Russia, a Syrian military source told Reuters on Thursday, underlining growing Russian support for Damascus that is alarming the United States.

A major earthquake just offshore rattled Chileans, killing five people and shaking the Earth so strongly the tremor was felt in places across South America. Authorities worked into the early hours Thursday assessing damage in several coastal towns that saw flooding from small tsunami waves set off by the quake.

Russia has agreed to help Iran upgrade its uranium-enriching centrifuges, Iran’s nuclear chief said.

Imams, priests, rabbis and other religious figures will have to enroll in a “national register of faith leaders” and be subject to government-specified training and security checks in the Home Office’s latest action on extremism.

The razor fences, closed borders and detention of refugees have been met with a chorus of mutual recrimination among Europe’s leaders. Today, the continent is more divided than ever by the crisis, unable to agree on quotas, and unwilling to allow free movement between its member states.

Russia has positioned about a half dozen tanks at an airfield at the center of a military buildup in Syria, two U.S. officials said on Monday, adding that the intentions of Moscow’s latest deployment of heavy military equipment were unclear.

The head of the United Nations nuclear watchdog will visit Tehran this week, joining a group of experts who were due to fly late on Monday, Iran’s top nuclear official said.

Two decades of frontier-free travel across Europe unraveled on Monday as countries re-established border controls in the face of an unprecedented influx of migrants, which broke the record for the most arrivals by land in a single day.

A huge construction crane buffeted by strong winds collapsed and crashed onto the Grand Mosque in Mecca on Friday, killing as many as 107 worshipers only days before the start of the annual Muslim pilgrimage, the Saudi Arabia Civil Defense reports.

Debt ratios have reached extreme levels across all major regions of the global economy, leaving the financial system acutely vulnerable to monetary tightening by the US Federal Reserve, the world’s top financial watchdog has warned.

A top al Qaeda leader urged young Muslim men in Western countries to launch attacks on their own, in an audio message released Sunday.

Russia has started to build a huge military base housing ammunition depots and barracks for several thousand soldiers near the Ukrainian border, a project that suggests the Kremlin is digging in for a prolonged stand-off with Kiev.

Russia and Iran are coordinating the dispatch of military forces to Syria in an effort to save the regime of embattled Syrian President Bashar Assad.