The US special envoy for Syria said he held talks with Syrian and Israeli officials in Paris on Thursday on de-escalating sectarian violence in Syria.

At least 142 countries now recognise or plan to recognise Palestinian statehood, according to an AFP tally -- though Israel and the United States strongly oppose the move.

Hussein al-Sheikh, vice-president of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), on Tuesday said he met the US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, in the occupied West Bank.

Armed tribes supported by Syria's Islamist-led government clashed with Druze fighters in the community's Sweida heartland on Friday, a day after the army withdrew under Israeli bombardment and diplomatic pressure.

Washington, United States - US President Donald Trump threatened to sue The Wall Street Journal Thursday over a story about an alleged off-color letter he wrote to Jeffrey Epstein, amid lingering political fallout over his administration's handling of the late financier's sex trafficking case. The Journal story says the letter featuring...

Washington, United States - Beverage giant Coca-Cola has agreed to use real cane sugar in its US production, President Donald Trump announced Wednesday on social media. The company currently uses high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) in its domestic beverages -- a sweetener that has long drawn criticism from Health Secretary Robert...

Washington and Tehran had been engaged in several rounds of negotiations seeking to strike a deal on the Islamic Republic's nuclear programme, but Israel derailed the talks when it launched a wave of surprise strikes on its regional nemesis.

US President Donald Trump told Russia on Monday to end its Ukraine war within 50 days or face massive new economic sanctions as he laid out plans for new infusions of weaponry for Kyiv via NATO.

US President Donald Trump's second state visit to the United Kingdom will be between September 17 to 19, Buckingham Palace announced Monday.

Iran has blamed the IAEA in part for the June attacks on its nuclear facilities, which Israel says it launched to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon -- an ambition Tehran has repeatedly denied.

Iran's nuclear programme has been "very, very delayed" by US and Israeli strikes, France's foreign intelligence chief said on Tuesday, wading into a contentious debate over just how hard it was hit.

US President Donald Trump said Monday the United States will send additional weapons to Ukraine, after the White House announced a halt to some arms shipments for Kyiv the previous week

Netanyahu's third visit since Trump's return to power comes at a crucial time, with the US president hoping to capitalize on the momentum from a recent truce between Israel and Iran.

"The movement is ready to engage immediately and seriously in a cycle of negotiations on the mechanism to put in place" the US-backed truce proposal, the militant group said in a statement.

Syria said on Friday it was willing to cooperate with the United States to reimplement the 1974 disengagement agreement with Israel, which created a UN-patrolled buffer zone separating the two countries' forces.

The Israeli leader had yet to comment on US President Donald Trump's claim that Israel had backed a plan for a 60-day truce in its offensive against Hamas in the war-ravaged territory.

The White House said Tuesday it is halting some key weapons shipments to Ukraine that were promised under the Biden administration for Kyiv's battle against the Russian invasion.

New York, United States - The Trump administration on Monday accused Harvard of violating the civil rights of its Jewish and Israeli students and threatened to cut off all federal funding if the university does not take urgent action. Harvard has been at the forefront of Donald Trump's campaign against...

His comments lifted hope for a new ceasefire in the devastating conflict in the Palestinian territory, after US President Donald Trump said he hoped a truce could be sealed within days.

"We have serious doubts over the enemy's compliance with its commitments including the ceasefire, we are ready to respond with force" if attacked again," Iranian armed forces chief of staff Abdolrahim Mousavi was quoted as saying.

London, United Kingdom - The BBC, Britain's public broadcaster that is struggling with strained finances, on Thursday launched a paid subscription service to its website in the United States to help fund its journalism. For $49.99 a year, or $8.99 a month, users will have "unlimited access" to the BBC's...

Trump, seeking credit for ordering military action and then quickly announcing a ceasefire between Israel and Iran, has lashed out angrily at media accounts of a classified report that doubted the extent of damage to Iranian nuclear sites.

The Hague, Netherlands - NATO leaders are set to sign off Wednesday at their Hague summit on a defence spending pledge to satisfy US President Donald Trump's demand for a headline figure of five percent of GDP. Here are the details of what NATO is signing up to: Five percent?...

Trump rejected that claim on Tuesday, posting on his Truth Social account that “the nuclear sites in Iran are completely destroyed.”

Mahmoud Khalil, one of the most prominent leaders of pro-Palestinian protests on US campuses, recounted his experience surviving 104 days in Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention after being targeted for deportation by the Trump administration.

The adversaries had been swapping missile fire since Israel carried out surprise "preemptive" strikes against Iran on June 13, targeting nuclear and military sites, and prompting Trump to warn of a possible "massive" regional conflict.

Iran on Sunday threatened US bases in the Middle East after massive air strikes that Washington said had destroyed Tehran's nuclear program, though some officials cautioned that the extent of damage was unclear.

Dozens of US military aircraft are no longer on the tarmac at a major US base in Qatar, satellite images show - a possible move to shield them from eventual Iranian air strikes, as Washington weighs whether to intervene in Tehran's conflict with Israel.

Hong Kong, China - Asian stocks fell Thursday after the Federal Reserve warned Donald Trump's trade war would likely reignite US inflation and dampen economic growth, while oil prices edged down as investors awaited developments in the Israel-Iran conflict. While geopolitical tensions are the key focus for markets, traders were...

Despite international alarm, neither side has backed off from the long-range blitz that began Friday, when Israel launched an unprecedented bombing campaign targeting Iranian nuclear and military facilities.

The United States and Iran had engaged in several rounds of indirect talks on Tehran's nuclear programme in recent weeks, but Iran said after the start of Israel's campaign that it would not negotiate while under attack.

Britain is deploying assets, including fighter jets, to the Middle East amid tensions between Iran and Israel, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Saturday heading to Canada for G7 talks.

Washington, United States - The United States still hopes to hold talks Sunday with Iran, even after Israel launched a massive attack on the Islamic republic, a US official said. "We still intend to have talks Sunday," the official told AFP on condition of anonymity. The official had no further...

"All its bases are within our reach, we have access to them, and without hesitation we will target all of them in the host countries," Iran's Defence Minister Aziz Nasirzadeh said in response to US threats of military action if the talks fail.

In a key sticking point, Iran has insisted on the right to enrich uranium at low levels for civilian use -- as allowed under a 2015 deal negotiated by former president Barack Obama which Trump tore up in his first White House term.

After a round of talks in Geneva last month, the United States and China will sit down at the negotiating table in London on Monday to attempt to preserve a fragile truce on trade, despite simmering tensions.

Nice, France - A global summit on the dire state of the oceans kicks off Monday in France, with calls to ban bottom trawling and bolster protections for the world's overexploited marine areas. World leaders attending the UN Ocean Conference in Nice have been told to come up with concrete...

Gaza's civil defence agency said Israeli forces killed at least 13 Palestinians on Saturday, six of them in a shooting incident near a US-backed aid distribution centre in the territory's south.

The United States on Thursday imposed sanctions on four judges at the International Criminal Court including over an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as it ramped up pressure to neuter the court of last resort.

Jerusalem, Undefined - The US ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee has lashed out at France's advocacy for recognition of a Palestinian state, saying that if it supported such an outcome it could "carve out a piece of the French Riviera" and create one. France is co-chairing with Saudi Arabia this...

Washington, United States - Billionaire Elon Musk on Wednesday announced he was leaving his role in US government, intended to reduce federal spending, shortly after his first major break with President Donald Trump over his signature spending bill. "As my scheduled time as a Special Government Employee comes to an...

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on Tuesday began a two-day visit to Oman, which is mediating ongoing nuclear talks between Tehran and Washington.

Jerusalem, Undefined - Israel's ambassador to Washington is being summoned home on the instructions of a government disciplinary body to discuss comments he made in a podcast interview, the foreign ministry said Sunday. Ambassador Yechiel Leiter had made an appearance on a podcast run by the right-wing US online media...

The move was formalised Friday after being announced by Trump on a Gulf tour this month during which he shook hands with Syria's interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa

Elias Rodriguez faces murder and other charges after allegedly gunning down two Israeli embassy staffers outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington.

The talks, which began in April, are the highest-level contact between the foes since the United States quit the 2015 nuclear accord during President Donald Trump's first term.

Iran and the United States will hold the next round of talks on the Islamic republic's nuclear programme in Rome later this week, Tehran and mediator Oman said Wednesday.

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has accepted the Boeing 747 that the Gulf emirate of Qatar offered to President Donald Trump for use as Air Force One, the Pentagon said Wednesday.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that Iran could have civilian nuclear power while importing enriched uranium but that it wanted to keep its enrichment programme as "a matter of national pride" and "as a deterrent".

Geneva, Switzerland - The World Health Organization's member states on Tuesday adopted a landmark Pandemic Agreement on tackling future health crises, after more than three years of negotiations sparked by the shock of Covid-19. The accord aims to prevent the disjointed responses and international disarray that surrounded the Covid-19 pandemic...