AFP, BONN: As UN diplomats convened in Bonn Monday, developing nations were balking at the latest draft of a global climate agreement to be inked in Paris in December, negotiators and experts said. The five-day session is the last formal parlay before heads of states and ministers gather in the French…

AFP, RIYADH: A Saudi investigation into the worst disaster in the history of the hajj pilgrimage is yet to end, official media reported Monday, more than three weeks after a stampede killed 1,791 people. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef “was reassured of the progress of the ongoing investigation”,…

AFP, BEIRUT: Devastated by years of fighting, Syria’s battle-weary armed forces are struggling to make significant gains despite intense Russian air support for a series of new offensives. Nearly three weeks of air strikes have given Bashar al-Assad’s regime and his forces a morale boost,…

AP, Jerusalem: Palestinians in Jerusalem, more than a third of the city’s population, have awoken to a new reality: Israeli troops are encircling Arab neighborhoods, blocking roads with concrete cubes the size of washing machines and ordering some of those leaving on foot to lift their shirts…

AFP, SOKCHO, South Korea: Close to 400 South Koreans, many of them elderly and nearly all in a state of fevered anticipation, gathered Monday before crossing into North Korea for a rare reunion with separated family members. Beginning Tuesday in the North Korean resort of Mount Kumgang, it will be only…

AFP, LONDON: British Prime Minister David Cameron will launch a new strategy Monday aimed at countering jihadist ideology and stopping young Britons travelling to Syria. Key measures in the plan include allowing parents to have passports removed from 16 and 17-year-olds, and barring those with terrorism…

Heavy rain and floods are affecting dozens of villages, after Typhoon Koppu swept through the northern Philippines. The slow-moving weather system has…