Israel will announce plans for new settlement construction next week, coinciding with the release of a third batch of Palestinian prisoners as part of peace talks, an official said Thursday.
Crude edged higher in Asian trade Thursday on supply concerns following escalating violence in oil-producer South Sudan, but gains were capped as dealers sat on the sidelines awaiting fresh leads after the festive season.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan replaced nearly half his cabinet in a dramatic reshuffle after a spreading graft scandal forced the resignation of three top ministers.
Thousands of South Sudanese have been killed in over a week of violence with reports of bodies piled in mass graves, the UN said Tuesday, as the Security Council agreed to nearly double its peacekeepers in the young nation threatening to slide into civil war.
Turkey's economy and interior ministers, ensnared in a vast corruption scandal that has roiled the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, resigned.
Pope Francis held his first Christmas Eve mass in the Vatican on Tuesday by highlighting the role played by humble shepherds in the Nativity, as thousands flocked to the historic site of Jesus's birth in Bethlehem.
Egypt's premier on Tuesday declared the Muslim Brotherhood movement a "terrorist" group, after a car bomb ripped through a police building and killed at least 14 people.
South Sudanese soldiers have carried out a string of ethnic killings, including a massacre, house-to-house killings and rapes, following an outbreak of fighting more than a week ago.
The United States -- a key backer of South Sudan's 2011 independence -- is increasing diplomatic pressure amid an intensifying conflict there but will not consider military intervention, experts said.
A Pakistani court on Monday said it was unable to lift a travel ban on former military ruler Pervez Musharraf, a day before his trial for treason was due to start.
Dubai police have made a record drug seizure of some 4.6 million Captagon pills, an amphetamine-like stimulant, worth more than $31 million (23 million euros), the local press reported Monday.
Syria now views Saudi Arabia as its number one enemy and accuses it of trying to destroy the country by arming jihadists and other rebels fighting to oust President Bashar al-Assad.
A Mozambican Airlines captain had a "clear intention" to crash an airplane that went down in Namibia killing 33 at the end of November, according to a preliminary investigation reported Saturday.
A suicide bomber rammed an explosives-packed vehicle into a security checkpoint outside the restive city of Benghazi in eastern Libya on Sunday, killing at least seven people, witnesses and security sources said.
Uganda's parliament on Friday adopted an anti-homosexuality bill that will see repeat offenders jailed for life, sparking an international outcry as lawmakers hailed it as a victory against "evil".
Turkish prosecutors have begun charging some of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's closest allies in a huge graft scandal he has responded to with a spectacular purge of the police.
US President Barack Obama warned that South Sudan stands at the "precipice" of renewed civil war, amid spiralling violence including an attack on a UN base that killed three Indian peacekeepers.
