Eurasia

Over 31 people were killed on Wednesday and dozens wounded in five simultaneous bombings claimed by the Islamic State group at Shiite mosques and offices in the Yemeni capital, medics and witnesses said. IS, a Sunni Muslim radical group, said the attacks were in “revenge” against the Shiite Huthis, who …

The foreign ministers of France, Germany, Ukraine and Russia are set to hold talks next week in Paris over the crisis in eastern Ukraine, the French foreign ministry said Wednesday. French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius will “discuss the situation in the east of Ukraine with his counterparts from Ukraine, Russia …

EU member states have agreed to extend economic sanctions against Russia over the Ukraine crisis to the end of January 2016, officials say, as NATO announced its largest defence reinforcement since the Cold War.

The number of Syrian refugees living in shelters in Turkey reached 259,533, the Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency of Turkey (AFAD) announced in a statement Wednesday. The number of Syrians living in tents and prefabricated homes provided by the Turkish government reached 14.585 in Hatay, 51.507 in Gaziantep, 103.001 in …

EU High Representative Federica Mogherini, met here Wednesday with the foreign ministers of Mali, Mauritania, Nigeria, Chad and Burkina Faso and discussed the EU’s relations with the five countries of the Sahel region. “We have decided to meet regularly at ministerial level and our technical services will work on three …

The United States plans to provide $5m to help support a regional military force fighting Nigeria’s Islamist militant group Boko Haram, a state department official said on Tuesday. Boko Haram last year held a vast swathe of territory in north-eastern Nigeria of just over 30 000 square kilometres, about the …

Syrian refugees in Turkey have begun returning to their homes in Tal Abyad after Kurdish forces seized the border town in a major blow to Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Some 200 men, women and children carrying their meagre possessions crossed back into Syria through the Turkish …

French defence minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said Wednesday that talks with India over the purchase of 36 Rafale fighter jets were progressing well and would be finalised within “two to three months”.

The French President confirmed Monday, in Algiers, that a military operation against a Libyan site where the terrorist Mokhtar Belmokhtar was took place, adding that there is a “great probability” that this terrorist was killed in this operation.

Algeria “welcomes” the opening on Monday in Geneva of peace talks among the Yemeni parties and voices hope that this dialogue reaches a “political” solution to the crisis the country is facing, Foreign Ministry’s spokesman Abdelaziz Benali Cherif said.