World News

Iran is “busy redesigning” a planned research reactor to sharply cut its potential output of plutonium – a potential nuclear bomb fuel, a senior Iranian official said in comments that seemed to address a key dispute in negotiations with world powers.

Jihadists fighting in Syria and Iraq have “thanked Allah” for the existence of Twitter, the social media platform, as a means of advertising their “victories in battle.”

As the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) threatened Western Iraq, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki secretly asked the Obama administration to consider carrying out air strikes against the terrorist organization, according to the New York Times.

Sunni jihadists pushed in a lightening offensive from northern Iraq and seized Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit, just 80 miles north of Baghdad.

Russia’s recent missile developments represent a “material breach” of its obligations under the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, a senior House Republican said Wednesday.

Four Russian strategic bombers triggered U.S. air defense systems while conducting practice bombing runs near Alaska this week, with two of the Tu-95 Bear H aircraft coming within 50 miles of the California coast, the North American Aerospace Defense Command (Norad) confirmed Wednesday.

Iran, after talks with senior U.S. officials, questioned whether a July deadline for a nuclear deal with world powers will be met, fueling doubts on the outcome as France spoke out, saying talks on curbing Tehran’s uranium enrichment had “hit a wall”.

The World Bank has cut its growth forecast for the global economy in 2014 following a weak start to the year in both rich and poor countries.

Opposition sources said ISIS, deemed the most powerful Al Qaida franchise in the Middle East, has captured a swathe of territory from the northern city of Aleppo to the Iraqi border. They said the corridor would enable a flow of fighters and weapons from Syria to Iraq. “We plan to establish an Islamic emirate in the Levant,” ISIS commander Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi said.

The British government has announced that schools will be required to teach “British values.” The news comes after Islamists took over several schools in the United Kingdom. This alleged plot to turn British faith-based schools into Muslim training academies has been dubbed “Operation Trojan Horse.”

A top Iranian defense official’s claim that a U.S. military base in the Indian Ocean is now within missile range served both as a threat to American interests and a revelation that, if true, Tehran has doubled its striking distance.

Two of the United States’ most recognizable military aircraft — a pair of B-2 stealth bombers — caught the eyes of residents as they arrived in Europe this week for training.

The Conservatives are cracking down on johns and pimps because legalizing their activities would be unacceptable to Canadians, says Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

Militants affiliated with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), a splinter al Qaeda group, launched an overnight attack on Mosul seizing control of the governor’s headquarters, television stations, as well as freeing hundreds of prisoners held in jails.

Pakistan’s Taliban insurgents claimed responsibility for an attack on a security academy at Karachi’s airport on Tuesday, less than 48 hours after an all-night siege by Taliban gunmen at Pakistan’s busiest airport that killed more than 30 people.

Russia and China are continuing to work closely to strengthen the BRICS economic bloc, which has made notable progress in many aspects in the last year, Secretary of the Russian Security Council Nikolai Patrushev said in Beijing.

Ukrainian border guards stand grim-faced and nervous at the remote Marynivka checkpoint on the frontier with Russia, fearing an attack by pro-Moscow separatists at any time.

Global equity markets edged higher on Monday, boosting a gauge of world stock performance to near an all-time high, as low interest rates bolstered sentiment even as U.S. Treasury yields rose.

Suspected Boko Haram gunmen have reportedly kidnapped 20 women from a nomadic settlement in northeast Nigeria near the town of Chibok, where the Islamic militants abducted more than 300 schoolgirls and young women on April 15.

Eighty percent of the opposition fighters in Syria have “a clear Islamist agenda,” a senior Israeli intelligence officer said on Monday, noting that Iran continues to aspire to nuclear weapons despite abiding by a provisional agreement signed with the superpowers.