AFP, RAMALLAH, Palestinian Territories: Palestinian leaders on Monday denounced an Israeli bill to legalise several thousand Jewish homes in the occupied West Bank, vowing to take up the issue at the UN Security Council. They also sharply criticised a separate bill that would limit the volume of calls…

AFP, LONDON: WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was being questioned by prosecutors on Monday at the Ecuadoran embassy in London in the latest twist in the long-running legal battle over a rape allegation against him. Swedish prosecutor Ingrid Isgren, who will attend while Assange is questioned by an…

AFP, CHRISTCHURCH: A powerful 7.8-magnitude earthquake killed two people and caused massive infrastructure damage in New Zealand on Monday, but officials…

AFP, WASHINGTON: Barack Obama will travel Monday to Greece and Germany in a final official visit designed, in a strange bit of political contortion, at reassuring worried Europeans about a man he once warned was “unfit” for the presidency: Donald Trump.The irony is cruel: In the name of…

AFP, MUSCAT: US Secretary of State John Kerry held talks Monday with officials in Oman on efforts to end Yemen’s 19-month conflict, state media in Muscat said. Kerry and Oman’s Foreign Minister Yusuf bin Alawi discussed the “peaceful and humanitarian role played by the sultanate in…

AFP, KANO, Nigeria: At least 10 people were killed and several injured Monday when police opened fire during clashes with pro-Iranian Shiites outside the northern Nigerian city of Kano, witnesses and police said. Violence broke out when police tried to disperse thousands of members of the Islamic Movement…

AFP, KARBALA: A rare suicide attack in an oasis town south of Baghdad killed eight people and wounded at least six on Monday, Iraqi officials said. The attack in Ain al-Tamer involved six suicide bombers, some of whom may have been killed by security forces before they could blow themselves up. Masum…