Eurasia

France opposes foreign intervention in Lebanon but will do its best to encourage the election of a new president as soon as possible, French President François Hollande said Tuesday. “France is ready to take initiative in international gatherings to speed up the presidential election process,” Hollande told Maronite Patriarch Beshara …

Rebels from northern Mali have told mediators they will initial a long-delayed United Nations-brokered peace proposal on the future of Mali’s north next month, a spokesman for the lead separatist group said late on Sunday. The government, based in the capital Bamako in the country’s south, and another coalition of …

Pro-government armed groups in Mali seized the northern town of Menaka from Tuareg separatists on Monday during fierce fighting, a spokesman for the group and a resident said. The clashes come after months of relative calm and risk derailing a fragile United Nations peace process that aims to settle the …

The Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko has said Thursday that the issue of the country’s NATO membership will be decided by referendum. During an official visit in Paris, France, Poroshenko said NATO membership was one of the “fundamental issues” for Ukraine.

Ukraine urged its allies to send it weapons and accused rebels of persistent ceasefire violations as NATO warned about an increase in Russian troop movement both near and across the border. “The Ukrainian army needs weapons to defend Ukraine,” Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk told lawmakers in Kyiv on Friday. “And …

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko held summit talks with the European Union as German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she expects sanctions against Russia to be renewed over the conflict in Ukraine’s east.

The head of a local committee tasked with assessing the needs of humanitarian relief for Yemen said that around 1,000 people are registered to have been killed by Houthi militias or their allies. These deaths have been recorded across Aden, Taiz and Dhale’, Izzudine Al-Asbahi said. In Taiz alone, there …

Suspected Boko Haram fighters in motorised canoes have attacked a Niger army base on an island in Lake Chad, the body of water touching all four countries that have been targeted by Nigeria’s Islamic insurgency, says Niger’s defense ministry.

Central African Republic’s transitional government has postponed a peace forum involving factions in a two-year-old conflict that has killed thousands, a statement from parliament said, as the country prepares for elections by the end of the year.

The UN has warned on Monday it had received only a fraction of the funds needed to address strife-torn Central African Republic’s towering humanitarian crisis, forcing it to cut desperately needed aid. “We must prevent the Central African Republic from becoming a forgotten crisis,” said Claire Bourgeois, the UN humanitarian …