UNITED NATIONS: The United Nations on Friday said it had been informed that the Islamist militants who seized 44 Fijian peacekeepers in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights did so “for their own protection” and that all the detained blue-helmet soldiers are safe. UN officials had been trying to est

GENEVA: The Ebola outbreak in West Africa eventually could exceed 20,000 cases, more than six times as many as are now known, the World Health Organization said Thursday. A new plan released by the UN health agency to stop Ebola also assumes that the actual number of cases in many hard-hi

Israeli prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's controversial ceasefire agreement with Hamas on Tuesday night came amid harsh political criticism of his decision from both the right and left sides of the political spectrum as well as a sharp drop in his popularity. A Channel 2 TV poll, published Wedn

JERUSALEM: Both Israel’s prime minister and Hamas declared victory Wednesday in the Gaza war, though their competing claims left questions over future terms of their uneasy peace still lingering. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s comments, delivered in a prime-time address on national t

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip: Israel and Hamas agreed Tuesday to an open-ended cease-fire, halting a seven-week war that killed more than 2,200 people, the vast majority Palestinians, left tens of thousands in Gaza homeless and devastated entire neighborhoods in the blockaded territory. Hamas declared v

GAZA: Israeli air strikes launched before dawn on Tuesday killed two Palestinians and destroyed much of one of Gaza’s tallest apartment and office buildings, setting off huge explosions and wounding 20 people, Palestinian health officials said. Israel had no immediate comment on the attacks that

Baghdad: Iraqi officials say a wave of attacks targeting commercial areas in and outside Baghdad has killed 43 people. They say the deadliest of Monday’s bombings was carried out by a suicide bomber who blew up himself among Shiite worshippers who were leaving a mosque after noon prayers in the

AKSU, China: Outside a mosque in China’s restive west, a government-appointed Muslim cleric was dodging a foreign reporter’s question about why young men of the Uighur ethnic minority don’t have beards when one such youth interrupted. “Why don’t you just tell them the truth?” he shouted to the cler

GAZA CITY: An Israeli airstrike killed a mother and four children from the same family in northern Gaza on Sunday, medics said. The strike hit a home near Jabalia in the north of the Palestinian territory, emergency spokesman Ashraf Al-Qudra said, as Sunday’s death toll in Gaza reached at least 14.

GAZA/CAIRO: Egypt called on Israel and the Palestinians on Saturday to halt hostilities and resume peace talks, but both sides kept up attacks, including an Israeli air strike which destroyed a residential tower block in the center of Gaza City. Hamas also fired rockets at Israel, hitting the south

Baghdad: Iraqi Shiite militiamen opened fire on minority Sunnis in a mosque on Friday, killing more than 70 people just as Baghdad is trying to build a cross-community government to fight Islamists whose rise has alarmed Western powers. A police officer said that local militants broke into the

UNITED NATIONS: Britain, France and Germany have put forward key points of a new UN Security Council resolution on Gaza in a fresh bid to end six weeks of violence, diplomats said Thursday. The European initiative came as fighting flared in the six-week war, with Israeli airstrikes killing three

ISLAMABAD: Chairman of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Imran Khan told his supporters on Thursday that the government had removed the Islamabad police chief for not using force against him, and warned the new police chief Khalid Khattak not to follow orders to crack down against the protesters. The

GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories: The armed wing of Hamas warned foreign airlines against flying into Tel Aviv on Wednesday and declared truce talks in Cairo over as a six-week war with Israel spirals into further bloodshed. Israeli warplanes carried out dozens of air strikes across Gaza again on

GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories: Several thousand Palestinians fled their homes in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, weighed down with bags of clothes, pillows and mattresses after Israel and Palestinian militants resumed fire, witnesses said. An AFP reporter saw hundreds of Palestinians streaming out

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has sent troops to boost security in Islamabad’s government district after opposition politician Imran Khan pledged to lead protesters on Parliament in a high-stakes bid to depose Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. Tens of thousands of protesters used a crane and bolt cutters to force

GENEVA: The UN health agency is urging Ebola-affected countries to start screening all passengers leaving international airports, sea ports and major ground crossings. The World Health Organization says the risk of the Ebola virus being transmitted during air travel is low but anyone with an illnes

GAZA CITY: The Gaza death toll rose over 2,000 Monday as the clock ticked toward a midnight deadline and negotiators in Cairo strove to hammer out a decisive end to weeks of bloodshed. As millions in and around Gaza enjoyed an eighth day of calm brought on by two back-to-back truce agreements, te