The death toll among Syrian Kurdish-led fighters battling a Turkish offensive has risen to 74, most of whom have been killed in the Tel Abyad area, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Saturday. Observatory Director Rami Abdulrahman also said 49 fighters with Turkish backed Syrian rebel groups had been killed since the assault […]

Turkish forces stepped up their bombardment around a town in northeast Syria on Saturday, the fourth day of an offensive against a Kurdish militia after United States troops in the region came under artillery fire from Turkish positions. The United States has ramped up its efforts to persuade Ankara to halt the incursion against the […]

The former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine on Friday told a House of Representatives impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump that Trump ousted her based on “unfounded and false claims” after she had come under attack by his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani. Marie Yovanovitch, the ambassador who was abruptly recalled from Kiev in May, spent more […]

Turkey intensified its air and artillery strikes in northeast Syria on Friday in an offensive against Kurdish militia that has raised the prospect of a humanitarian disaster and questions about U.S. President Donald Trump’s policy in the region. The Kurds, who recaptured swathes of northeastern Syria from Islamic State with the backing of the United […]

Taiwan’s president rejected on Thursday a “one country, two systems” formula that Beijing has suggested could be used to unify the island and the mainland, saying such an arrangement had set Hong Kong “on the edge of disorder”. President Tsai Ing-wen also vowed in a National Day speech to defend Taiwan’s sovereignty, saying her government […]

The United States and China agreed on Friday to the first phase of a deal to end a trade war, prompting President Donald Trump to suspend a threatened tariff hike, but officials said the agreement had to be put on paper and more work was required to get it finalized. The partial accord, covering agriculture, […]

The United States will send fighter jets and additional air defences to Saudi Arabia to defend the kingdom against Iran amid heightened tensions between the two Middle Eastern adversaries, Defense Secretary Mark Esper said Friday. Esper announced the deployment of several dozen fighter jets along with other aircraft and additional air defences hours after Iran […]

A man in his 40s was arrested on suspicion of committing terror offences after a Friday morning stabbing attack at a shopping mall in Manchester, in northern England. Police said three victims — two women and a man — were taken to the hospital with stab wounds and a fourth person was treated at the […]

Alexei Leonov, the first person to perform a spacewalk, died this week. He was 85. Russian space agency Roscosmos Space Corporation announced his passing Friday. State news agency RIA-Novosti reported he’d been chronically ill before his death. Though Leonov wasn’t the first man on the moon (a goal he wasn’t shy about), he earned his […]

Two Scottish teenagers have been arrested over claims they hacked into the Metropolitan Police’s website and posted a series of bizarre messages. The country’s largest police force was hit by a cyber attack in July and a series of tweets were sent from its verified account, which has more than 1.2 million followers. A stream […]