World News

Banks in Greece and the country’s stock exchange will be shut all week in a sign of the deepening financial crisis.

Greece may yet crash out of the the 19-member bloc, say European ministers, as time is running out on negotiations.

Russia is “playing with fire” with its nuclear saber-rattling and the United States is determined to prevent it from gaining a significant military advantage through violations of the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty, the deputy U.S. defense chief said on Thursday.

After a bloody assault Thursday, Islamic State fighters re-entered the Syrian Kurdish town of Kobani, five months after Kurdish forces retook the strategically important border city.

The United States and other nations negotiating a nuclear deal with Iran are ready to offer high-tech reactors and other state-of-the-art equipment to Tehran if it agrees to crimp programs that can make atomic arms,

Iran’s supreme leader has apparently rejected key provisions of a framework agreement reached in April between his negotiators and those of six world powers.

The U.S. military and Iranian-backed Shiite militias are getting closer and closer in Iraq, even sharing a base, while Iran uses those militias to expand its influence in Iraq and fight alongside the Bashar al-Assad regime in neighboring Syria.

Iran’s parliament voted Sunday to oppose the inspections of government military sites as part of a pending, multi-nation agreement to curb the country’ nuclear program — potentially complicating a final deal ahead of a June 30 deadline.

Iran’s support for international terrorist groups remained undiminished last year and even expanded in some respects, the Obama administration said Friday, less than two weeks before the deadline for completing a nuclear deal that could provide Tehran with billions of dollars in relief from economic sanctions.

Iran is trying to avoid detailed commitments. The French are sticking to their tough line. And US President Barack Obama faces a battle to sell any deal to a skeptical Congress.

Pope Francis called Thursday for a bold cultural revolution to correct what he calls the “structurally perverse” economic system of the rich exploiting the poor that is turning Earth into an “immense pile of filth.”

Benefiting from Libya’s political chaos, Islamic State militants are consolidating their base in the city of Sirte and grabbing new territory, pushing back fighters from Misrata.

The number of people uprooted from their homes by war and persecution in 2014 was larger than in any year since detailed record-keeping began, according to a comprehensive report released early Thursday by the U.N. refugee agency that will add to the evidence of a global exodus unlike any in modern times.

Syrian President Bashar Assad’s army has used chemical weapons at least 29 times in the past year, according to testimony delivered Wednesday before the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

A quick and successful offensive by Kurdish fighters and allied rebels in a northern Syrian town has boosted a U.S.-backed effort to choke off Islamic State’s supply routes and offered a template for regaining territory from the extremist group.

Russia announced Tuesday that it will expand its nuclear arsenal, sparking concerns about a renewed arms race as old Cold War rivals Moscow and Washington plan to increase their military capacity amid rising tensions over Ukraine.

North Korea has been hit by what it describes as its worst drought in a century, which could worsen chronic food shortages in a country where the United Nations says almost a third of children under five are stunted because of poor nutrition.

Pope Francis will this week call for changes in lifestyles and energy consumption to avert the “unprecedented destruction of the ecosystem” before the end of this century, according to a leaked draft of a papal encyclical. In a document released by an Italian magazine on Monday, the pontiff will warn that failure to act would have “grave consequences for all of us”.

The presidents of Russia and Turkey have met and discussed a proposal for a pipeline that would carry natural gas from Russia to Turkey.

The Pentagon is “poised” to station heavy weapons for up to 5,000 American troops in several Eastern European and Baltic countries to deter Russian aggression.