WASHINGTON Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton said on Monday that if elected, she would pressure U.S. technology companies to help intelligence agencies disrupt violent plots after a gunman inspired by radical Islamist groups killed 49... More »
WASHINGTON Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump faulted the Muslim community on Monday for not reporting people like the man who carried out the Orlando gay nightclub attack, killing 49 people and wounding 53 others. Trump, the presumptive Republican... More »
MOSCOW Russian President Vladimir Putin and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker will talk about sanctions and energy projects when they meet in St Petersburg this week, Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov told reporters. “The subject of sanctions will be r... More »
MOSCOW Exxon Mobil (XOM.N) Chief Executive Rex Tillerson is to attend a major investment forum in Russia this week, two industry sources said, ending a two year absence from the event that began when sanctions were imposed on Russia over the crisis in Ukraine.... More »
BEIJING The United States is pleased to see progress has been made with China on information sharing about cyber threats, a senior U.S. official said on Tuesday during the latest round of cyber security talks between the two countries. Cyber security has long ... More »
WASHINGTON Accustomed to generating controversy in their native Middle East with lyrics tackling love, sex and political apathy, members of Lebanese alt-rock band Mashrou’ Leila thought a summer U.S. tour would bring them a welcome respite. Instead, as news sp... More »
SINGAPORE China rebuffed U.S. pressure to curb its activity in the South China Sea on Sunday, restating its sovereignty over most of the disputed territory and saying it “has no fear of trouble”. On the last day of Asia’s biggest security summit in Singapore, ... More »
BEIJING China hopes to establish counter-terrorism intelligence sharing with France as the Asian giant seeks greater international support for its anti-terror fight, China’s state-run Xinhua news agency reported citing an exchange between officials of the two ... More »
ULAANBAATAR U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Sunday the United States would consider any Chinese establishment of an air defense zone over the South China Sea to be a “provocative and destabilizing act”. U.S. officials have expressed concern that an ... More »
AMMAN The Syrian army pushed into Raqqa province, home to the de facto capital of Islamic State, after a major Russian-backed offensive against the militants, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Saturday. The offensive is the third big assault on t... More »
SINGAPORE The United States stepped up pressure on China on Saturday to rein in its actions in the South China Sea, with top defense officials underlining Washington’s military superiority and vowing to remain the main guarantor of Asian security for decades t... More »
SINGAPORE The recent lifting of the U.S. arms embargo against Vietnam boosted trust between the former enemies, but significant weapons purchases are some way off, a senior Vietnamese military official said on Saturday. Deputy Defence Minister Nguyen Chi Vinh ... More »
SINGAPORE Japanese Defence Minister Gen Nakatani said on Saturday that Japan and South Korea agreed to expand an emergency communication system between their defense ministries, including adding a new direct line between defense ministers. Tensions have been h... More »
WASHINGTON A U.S. congressional committee has launched an investigation into the Federal Reserve’s cyber security practices after a Reuters report revealed more than 50 cyber breaches at the U.S. central bank between 2011 and 2015. The House Committee on Scien... More »
KABUL Thousands of demonstrators from Afghanistan’s Hazara minority marched in protest through Kabul on Monday saying that they are missing out on a multi-million dollar power transmission line, posing a major challenge to the government of President Ashraf Gh... More »
ISTANBUL Turkish and U.S.-led coalition forces struck Islamic State targets north of the Syrian city of Aleppo on Sunday, killing 27 fighters, state-run Anadolu Agency and other media reported. Turkish artillery and rocket launchers fired into Syria while warp... More »
SOCHI, Russia An effort to show off the superiority of Russian military equipment backfired on Thursday when the door handle of a jeep fell off just as President Vladimir Putin was inspecting the vehicle. The Kremlin leader was being shown an array of military... More »
KIEV Ukraine has recovered 17 paintings, including works by Peter Paul Rubens and Tintoretto, stolen by armed robbers from the Castelvecchio museum in Verona last year, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said on Wednesday. Ukrainian authorities will now invi... More »
MUNICH A German national stabbed four passengers at a train station near Munich early on Tuesday, killing one man and injuring three, in an attack police said appeared to have an Islamist motive. Witnesses said the assailant, a 27-year-old man, shouted “Allahu... More »
ANKARA Tayyip Erdogan’s ambitions for a swift move to strong presidential rule could suffer if dissidents in Turkey’s nationalist opposition succeed in a party leadership challenge that could bolster their party’s electoral support. A bid by several hundred me... More »
ISTANBUL Long-running efforts to fully restore Israeli-Turkish ties strained after an Israeli raid of a Turkish boat in 2010 must now await the formation of a new government in Ankara, Israel’s top diplomat in Turkey said. Turkey downgraded diplomatic relation... More »
WASHINGTON Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, who has called for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the United States, suggested on Monday he would make an exception for London’s newly elected Muslim mayor, the New York Times reported. “There wil... More »
CANNES, France Security at the Cannes film festival, which opens on Wednesday, will be intense as France is still facing a high risk of attack, French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said on Monday. With 45,000 people expected to visit the May 11-22 event,... More »
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission and Federal Trade Commission have asked mobile phone carriers and manufacturers to explain how they release security updates amid mounting concerns over security vulnerabilities, the U.S. agencies said on Monday... More »
PYONGYANG North Korea expelled a BBC journalist on Monday over his reporting, the broadcaster and a North Korean official said, as a large group of foreign media members visited the isolated country to cover a rare ruling party congress. Rupert Wingfield-Hayes... More »
SAN SALVADOR (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – The sweet sounds of classical music float across a sunny courtyard as a group of teenagers pluck the strings of violins and cellos. But beyond the high gates enclosing the courtyard of the Don Bosco Industrial Polygo... More »
HANOVER, Germany/WASHINGTON President Barack Obama will announce on Monday he plans to send as many as 250 additional U.S. troops to Syria, a sharp increase in the American presence working with local Syrian forces fighting Islamic State militants, U.S. offici... More »
TOKYO Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida, speaking ahead of a visit to Beijing, said on Monday China was making the world “worried” with its military buildup and maritime expansion in the East and South China Seas. Ties between China and Japan, the world’... More »
MAKHMOUR, Iraq Towering over his Kurdish partner at a checkpoint in northern Iraq, U.S. volunteer John Cole cuts an unusual figure on the road to the newest front in the war against Islamic State. Seven feet (2.1 meters) tall and holding his assault rifle upsi... More »
DUBAI Yemeni government forces and their allies killed more than 800 al Qaeda fighters when they advanced into the port city of Mukalla, the Saudi-led pro-government coalition said. Yemeni and Emirati soldiers seized the seaport on Sunday, depriving the group ... More »
HANOVER, Germany U.S. President Barack Obama said on Sunday he would do whatever he could to advance a controversial trade deal with the European Union in his last eight months in office, but warned that time was running short. Obama has pushed to complete two... More »
HANOVER, Germany German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Sunday that she did not favor classical “safe zones” in Syria which would need to be protected by foreign forces but believed that peace talks in Geneva could agree areas where fleeing Syrians could feel... More »
WASHINGTON The White House will likely make a decision by June on whether it will release some classified material withheld from the public 9/11 Commission Report, a former U.S. senator who co-chaired the congressional inquiry into the attacks said on Sunday. ... More »
HOLLYWOOD, Fla./WASHINGTON Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump attacked his top Democratic rival Hillary Clinton on Friday, calling her “crooked,” and promised his supporters that he would not bore them by becoming overly presidential. The commen... More »
BEIJING China will launch a “core module” for its first space station some time around 2018, a senior official told the state-run Xinhua news agency on Thursday, part of a plan to have a permanent manned space station in service around 2022. Advancing China’s ... More »
LONDON A meticulous recreation of the 1,800-year-old Arch of Triumph in Palmyra, Syria, destroyed by Islamic State militants last year, has been erected in Trafalgar Square in what London Mayor Boris Johnson called an act of defiance. The 5.5-metre (20ft) mode... More »
BRUSSELS A new art museum has opened its doors in Brussels’ Molenbeek district hoping to help shed the negative image of the area, most recently linked to the deadly attacks in Paris and the Belgian capital. The Millennium Iconoclast Museum of Art (MIMA) is ba... More »
KUWAIT Peace talks in Kuwait aimed at ending over a year of civil war and a Saudi-led intervention in Yemen will not begin on Monday as planned, officials from the warring sides said, amid objections over continued fighting despite an announced ceasefire. Dele... More »
BEIRUT Syrian rebel groups announced a new battle against government forces on Monday, a sign of escalating violence that has undermined a ceasefire deal and threatens to derail U.N.-led peace talks. The groups, which included factions fighting under the banne... More »
BAGHDAD U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter flew into Iraq on Monday to discuss offering more help in the fight against Islamic State, possibly including sending in more U.S. troops, officials said. Carter would meet Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi and Defe... More »
ABOARD THE PAPAL PLANE Pope Francis said on Saturday that his meeting with Bernie Sanders, contesting the Democratic candidacy for the U.S. Presidency, was not meddling in politics and that anyone who thought otherwise should “look for a psychiatrist”. Sanders... More »
BERLIN Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Tuesday Germany wanted to find a solution to the migrant crisis but this was separate to artistic freedom after the Turkish leader filed a complaint against a comedian for insulting him with a satirical poem. “I want to ... More »
ADEN A shaky truce took hold in Yemen on Monday under a U.N.-backed effort to end a war that has made the country a front in Saudi Arabia’s region wide rivalry with Iran and caused one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. The war-damaged capital Sanaa spe... More »
WASHINGTON A U.S. Navy officer with access to sensitive U.S. intelligence faces espionage charges over accusations he passed state secrets, possibly to China and Taiwan, a U.S. official told Reuters on Sunday. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, ... More »
HIROSHIMA, Japan John Kerry on Monday became the first U.S. secretary of state to pay his respects at Hiroshima’s memorial to victims of the 1945 U.S. nuclear attack, raising speculation that U.S. President Barack Obama might make his own visit in May. Followi... More »
GOA, India U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter began a three-day visit to India on Sunday, seeking to advance a relatively new defense relationship with a country Washington sees as a counterweight to the growing power of China. In a sign of the importance Carte... More »
BEIJING China’s online censorship system protects national security and does not discriminate against foreign companies, the country’s internet regulator said, after the United States labeled the blocking of websites by Beijing a trade barrier. The U.S. Trade ... More »
LONDON Usually concerned with top secret matters affecting national security, Britain’s eavesdropping spy agency GCHQ was also on the lookout for leaks of a yet-to-be-published Harry Potter book, its publisher has revealed. Shortly before the publication of on... More »
WASHINGTON Security researchers and civil liberties advocates on Friday condemned draft legislation leaked from the U.S. Senate that would let judges order technology companies to assist law enforcement agencies in breaking into encrypted data. The long-awaite... More »
BOSTON For days after the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, Americans were glued to the news, eager to know who had planted the homemade devices that ripped through the crowd at the finish line, killing three people. The world got its first look at the suspects th... More »
BAKU Three Azeri servicemen were killed in fresh fighting with Armenian-backed separatists over the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region on Monday, Azerbaijan’s Defence Ministry said. Azerbaijan had halted its attacks but Armenia was still “aggravating the situat... More »
MILWAUKEE Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump predicted that the United States is on course for a “very massive recession,” warning that a combination of high unemployment and an overvalued stock market had set the stage for another economic slum... More »
SAN FRANCISCO The FBI’s method for breaking into a locked iPhone 5c is unlikely to stay secret for long, according to senior Apple Inc engineers and outside experts. Once it is exposed, Apple should be able to plug the encryption hole, comforting iPhone users ... More »
WASHINGTON Digital privacy advocates and users of Reddit expressed their alarm on Friday over a change in the forum’s transparency report that suggested it may have been asked to give customer data to FBI investigators under a secretive government authority. T... More »
WASHINGTON U.S. President Barack Obama said on Friday that Donald Trump’s recent comments that South Korea and Japan should acquire nuclear weapons show the leading Republican presidential candidate is not well informed on international relations. Trump told T... More »
U.S. hospitals should brace for a surge in “ransomware” attacks by cyber criminals who infect and shut down computer networks, then demand payment in return for unlocking them, a non-profit healthcare group warned on Friday. The Health Information Trust Allian... More »
DUBAI A Saudi-led military coalition on Monday said it had completed a prisoner swap in Yemen, exchanging nine Saudi prisoners for 109 Yemeni nationals ahead of a planned truce and peace talks aimed at ending the year-long war with Houthi rebels. The statement... More »
DUBAI The secretary of the Iranian National Security Council has congratulated Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on regaining the city of Palmyra, Tasnim news agency reported on Monday. “The determination of the Syrian nation, government and army to eliminate t... More »
YONAGUNI Japan on Monday switched on a radar station in the East China Sea, giving it a permanent intelligence gathering post close to Taiwan and a group of islands disputed by Japan and China, a move bound to rile Beijing. The new Self Defence Force base on t... More »
LAHORE, Pakistan Pakistani authorities hunted on Monday for breakaway Taliban militants who once declared loyalty to Islamic State after the group claimed responsibility for an Easter suicide bomb targeting Christians, that killed at least 70 people. The attac... More »
WASHINGTON U.S. Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump on Sunday doubled down on his criticism of NATO, a cornerstone of U.S. foreign policy for decades, and called for the alliance’s overhaul days before world leaders convene in Washington. Preside... More »
MEXICO CITY A man suspected of laundering money for jailed drug kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman was detained in southwestern Mexico, and faces extradition to the United States, Mexican authorities said on Sunday. Juan Manuel Alvarez, who was arrested in Oaxa... More »
BEIRUT Syrian government forces backed by heavy Russian air support drove Islamic State out of Palmyra on Sunday, inflicting what the army called a mortal blow to militants who seized the city last year and dynamited its ancient temples. The loss of Palmyra re... More »
BRUSSELS Belgian police briefly used water cannon to control several hundred rowdy protesters in central Brussels on Sunday after they ignored an official call for marches to be postponed following Tuesday’s bombings. Amid fears of further attacks, officials w... More »
Facebook Inc apologized to users on the other side of the world from Sunday’s suicide bombing in Pakistan who received computer-addressed notices asking if they were safe. Facebook users as far away as New York and Virginia showed notifications they received o... More »
ISLAMABAD Pakistan and Iran aim to increase annual trade volumes between the two countries to $5 billion by 2021, Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said on Saturday. Sharif spoke at a business conference with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, who arrived i... More »
U.S. pop star Mariah Carey said on Friday that she was canceling a tour stop in Brussels amid safety concerns following attacks this week that killed 31 people and injured some 270 more. The songstress, one of the best-selling female solo artists of recent tim... More »
Presidential candidate Ted Cruz says he is the most consistent conservative left in the Republican race. The senator from Texas promises to cut taxes, slash regulations, crack down on illegal immigration and stick up for gun owners if he wins the White House. ... More »
HONG KONG U.S. Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump has been pilloried in many ways, over his bouffant hair, orange skin and supposedly small hands, but a British artist has now used raw pig and sheep parts to sculpt him for a Hong Kong art show. T... More »
PARIS Salah Abdeslam, the prime surviving suspect for November’s Paris attacks, will no longer fight extradition to France but wants to return to his home country to explain himself as soon as possible, his lawyer said on Thursday. “Salah Abdeslam has asked me... More »
NEW YORK A consultant to Iran’s mission to the United Nations has been criminally charged with violating a U.S. law against dealing with that country, according to an indictment made public on Wednesday. Ahmad Sheikhzadeh, 60, faces seven charges including con... More »
WASHINGTON Shortly after last November’s attacks on Paris by a Brussels-based Islamic State cell, a top U.S. counter-terrorism official traveling in Europe wanted to visit Brussels to learn more about the investigation. When the official tried to arrange meeti... More »
JAKARTA Indonesia on Thursday urged Chinese ships not to enter its territorial waters, days after it protested against what it called a breach of its sovereignty by a Chinese coastguard ship. Indonesia is not embroiled in rival claims with China over the South... More »
BRUSSELS Belgian police were hunting on Thursday for a “third man” filmed with two Islamic State suicide bombers at Brussels Airport as investigators accumulated evidence that the same jihadist network was involved in the deadly Paris attacks last November. As... More »
WASHINGTON Atlanta’s airport was briefly evacuated on Wednesday over a suspicious package while U.S. law enforcement agencies and travelers were on edge a day after deadly suicide bombings by Islamist militants rocked Brussels. Passengers were ordered out of p... More »
ITU ABA, South China Sea On Itu Aba, in the Spratly archipelago of the South China Sea, Taiwanese coast guard officials proudly haul a small wooden bucket of water from one of several simple concrete wells on the coral outcrop. The water, clear and sweet tasti... More »
Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton said on Wednesday the attack in Brussels that killed more than 30 people is the “latest brutal reminder” that more must be done to defeat Islamic State militants, including by European Union member countries... More »
BUENOS AIRES U.S. President Barack Obama said on Wednesday he did not expect a breakthrough on Middle East peace before he leaves office and reiterated his support for a two-state solution in which Israelis and Palestinians could live peacefully side by side. ... More »
WASHINGTON The Obama administration is expected to blame Iranian hackers as soon as Thursday for a coordinated campaign of cyber attacks in 2012 and 2013 on several U.S. banks and a New York dam, sources familiar with the matter have told Reuters. The Justice ... More »
Movie studio Warner Bros went ahead with Tuesday’s London premiere of “Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice,” its new superhero movie, but skipped the traditional red carpet press interviews following the attacks in Brussels. “Our hearts go out to the victims o... More »
ANKARA The death toll in a car bomb attack in the Turkish capital Ankara has risen to 37 people, Health Minister Mehmet Muezzinoglu said on Monday, adding that 71 people were still being treated in hospital. Of those in hospital, 15 were in serious condition, ... More »
BEIJING China’s military must pour efforts into developing cutting edge defense technology, which has strategic significance, China’s President Xi Jinping said on Sunday, according to state media reports. Xi also stressed professionalizing the country’s milita... More »
TUNIS/ALGIERS The signal to attack came from the mosque, sending dozens of Islamist fighters storming through the Tunisian town of Ben Guerdan to hit army and police posts in street battles that lit the dawn sky with tracer bullets. Militants used a megaphone ... More »
WASHINGTON/BLOOMINGTON, Ill. Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump refused to take responsibility on Sunday for clashes at his campaign events and criticized protesters who have dogged his rallies and forced him to cancel one in Chicago last week. ... More »
BRUSSELS Europe’s emerging migration policy is looking increasingly like Donald Trump without the hair. Except that, unlike the Republican presidential frontrunner, who wants to make Mexico pay for a wall to keep migrants out of the United States, the European... More »
SEOUL North Korea on Sunday denied that it conducted cyber attacks against officials from rival South Korea, calling the South’s accusation that it did so a “fabrication”. South Korea’s spy agency told lawmakers on Friday that North Korea had recently stepped ... More »
DAYTON, Ohio Secret Service officers rushed on stage to protect U.S. Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump during a disturbance at a rally on Saturday, a day after rowdy protests shut down his event in Chicago. Trump briefly ducked at the podium an... More »
A spokeswoman for U.S. Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump on Saturday denied a media report that he had canceled an Ohio rally because of security concerns. The Cincinnati.com news website had quoted Eric Deters, a local spokesman for Trump’s ca... More »
MANILA The Philippines is to lease from Japan five aircraft to help patrol the disputed South China Sea, President Benigno Aquino announced on Wednesday, as China expands its military presence in the region. The Philippine military, for decades preoccupied wit... More »
SEOUL North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said the country has miniaturized nuclear warheads to mount on ballistic missiles and ordered improvements in the power and precision of its arsenal, state media reported on Wednesday. Kim has called for his military to be... More »
SEOUL North Korea is using Chinese-made trucks in a new mobile artillery system showcased five days ago, according to photographs reviewed by Reuters, underlining the difficulty in enforcing U.N. sanctions against the isolated state. North Korea’s Multiple Roc... More »
SYDNEY/WASHINGTON The United States is in talks to base long-range bombers in Australia, U.S. defense officials said, within striking distance of the disputed South China Sea, a move that could inflame tensions with China. The deployments could include B-1 bom... More »
TEL AVIV An American tourist was stabbed to death and at least nine other people were wounded by a Palestinian armed with a knife on a popular boardwalk in Tel Aviv on Tuesday, authorities said, while U.S. Vice President Joe Biden was in a meeting a few kilome... More »
MOGADISHU Islamist militants in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, set off a vehicle packed with explosives next to a cafe near a police building on Wednesday, killing at least three police officers. The Islamist al Shabaab group, which wants to topple the Western... More »
BEIJING China is taking a “distinctly Chinese approach” to national security with a raft of new laws, including one on counterterrorism, the third-ranked leader said on Wednesday, offering a strong rebuttal to Western criticism. The U.S., Canadian, German and ... More »
Amid Yemen’s misery, two young women living in the war-damaged cities of Aden and Sanaa know they are among the relatively fortunate. They are not starving, their homes have not been destroyed and they have survived bombs and bullets unscathed. But both long t... More »
WASHINGTON U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan said on Tuesday that lawmakers would continue to press for new sanctions against Tehran “until the regime ends its violent, provocative behavior against the U.S. and our allies.” Ryan, whose Republican... More »
WASHINGTON/TEL AVIV Israel would have shown good manners had it informed the United States directly rather than through the news media that it was turning down a proposed summit meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama, the White House said on Tuesday. But spo... More »
BANGKOK On a wall in a northern suburb of Bangkok “Asin Acid” puts the finishing touches to a spray-painted picture of a colorful giant chicken holding a broken loudspeaker. “The loudspeaker represents the media. The media is trying to say something but is bei... More »
ISTANBUL A day after Turkey’s top-selling newspaper Zaman was taken over by the state, it dropped its criticisms of the government on Sunday and published flattering stories on President Tayyip Erdogan. The episode is the latest twist in a long-running conflic... More »
