BEIRUT: A suicide car bomber dispatched by the Daesh group struck near a police officers’ club in the Syrian capital, killing at least 10 people and destroying a number of cars. Syrian state TV reported the toll and showed footage of the blast scene, including several damaged vehicles and a burnt-o

WASHINGTON: North Korea has expanded a uranium enrichment facility and restarted a plutonium reactor that could start recovering spent fuel in weeks or months, the US intelligence chief said Tuesday in delivering the annual assessment by intelligence agencies of the top dangers facing the country.

NEUBRANDENBURG: German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Saturday tried to placate the increasingly vocal critics of her open-door policy for refugees, insisting that asylum seekers from Syria and Iraq would go home once the conflicts there had ended. Merkel, despite appearing increasingly isolated ove

BEIJING: Rescuers on Friday pulled out four miners who had spent 36 days trapped underground in a collapsed mine in eastern China. The gypsum mine in Shandong province collapsed on Christmas Day, killing one and leaving 17 missing, including the four survivors. In the days that followed, rescuers

BEIJING: US Secretary of State John Kerry and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi agreed on Wednesday on the need for a significant new UN Security resolution targeting North Korea after its Jan. 6 nuclear test, though there were few signs of concrete progress. Kerry, on a two-day visit to Beijing,

WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama says he will ban the use of solitary confinement for juveniles and low-level offenders in federal prisons, citing the potential for “devastating, lasting psychological consequences” from the use of the isolation as punishment. The move comes amid a national mov

PESHAWAR, Pakistan: Officials say a northwestern Pakistani university where Islamic militants gunned down 21 students and teachers last week has reopened for classes amid tight security. University official Kabir Khan says classes at the Bacha Khan University in the town of Charsadda resumed on Mon

WASHINGTON: Tens of millions of residents from northern Georgia to New Jersey have shuttered themselves inside to wait out a mammoth storm that has made travel treacherous and could dump up to 2 feet of snow in some areas. Blizzard warnings stretch from northeastern Virginia to New York City, with

DAVOS: Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau “welcomes” Syrian refugees arriving in Toronto not as asylum seekers but as citizens. Speaking at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, Prime Minister Trudeau said: “I welcomed them as new Canadians and as the future of the Ca

LONDON: The family of a 10-year-old Muslim boy demanded an apology on Wednesday after he was quizzed by British police for writing that he lived in a "terrorist" house instead of a "terraced" house during an English class. Police interviewed the boy at his home in Lancashire, northwest England, o

PARIS: French President Francois Hollande pledged Monday to redefine France’s business model and declared what he called “a state of economic and social emergency,” unveiling a 2-billion-euro ($2.2 billion) plan to revive hiring and catch up with a fast-moving world economy. The measures he propose

TAIPEI: The Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) Tsai Ing-wen has been elected Taiwan’s first female president. Tsai took a commanding lead in the election results late Saturday evening, and the candidate for the China-friendly Nationalist Party conceded a massive loss. Tsai had about 60 percent

NORTH CHARLESTON: Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump and top challenger Ted Cruz ended a longstanding truce in spectacular fashion on Thursday night with bitter exchanges during what may have been Trump’s strongest debate performance to date. The New York billionaire and the Texas se

DUBAI: The leader of al-Qaida is threatening Saudi Arabia over its mass execution of 47 people, many of whom were tied to the terror group.  Ayman al-Zawahiri delivered the message in a recording earlier this week that was reported by the SITE Intelligence Group.  The seven-minute speech exhorte

ISLAMABAD: Four countries — Afghanistan, Pakistan, China and the United States — were cloistered away late into the night Monday trying to lay a foundation they hope will eventually lead to peace talks between the Afghan government and Taliban fighters. But in the end, the biggest decision that appe

Pathankot terror attack: Pakistan PM Nawaz Sharif has already said that a transparent investigation will be made and those involved will not be spared. With National Security Advisor Ajit K Doval leaving for Paris late Monday night and Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar in Male, New Delhi is li

BAQUBA, Iraq:Bombings killed 20 people and wounded dozens at a cafe in the Iraqi town of Muqdadiyah northeast of Baghdad on Monday, officers said. A bomb exploded at the cafe and a suicide bomber detonated an explosives-rigged vehicle after people gathered at the scene, a police captain and an ar

MOSCOW: Russian investigators have opened a criminal probe in the case of a patient who died after he was punched in the head by a doctor. The announcement of the probe Saturday said the incident took place Dec. 29 in a hospital in Belgorod, 570 kilometers (350 miles) southwest of Moscow. Video of