Eurasia

Syrian army troops and Shi’ite militia fighters loyal to President Bashar al-Assad captured two southern suburbs of Damascus on Friday, killing at least 70 people, opposition activists said. The fighters, including some from the Lebanese Shi’ite movement Hezbollah and Iraqi Shi’ites backed by Syrian army tanks, searched al-Thiabiya and Husseiniya, …

US Secretary of State John Kerry arrived on an unannounced visit to Kabul Friday to try to advance troubled negotiations with Afghanistan on some US troops staying in the country after 2014. President Hamid Karzai said this week that he was prepared to walk away from the Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA) talks …

The evolution of the Syrian crisis and its influence upon the neighboring states and the major world actors, the regional consequences of the “Arab Spring” and, not least, the recent announcements about the beginning of the exploitation of the gas resources of the Leviathan offshore deposits are only a few …

If Azerbaijan joins the Eurasian Customs Union, it will most likely be jointly with Turkey, deputy chairman of the Inter-Commission Working Group on International Cooperation and Public Diplomacy of the Public Chamber of Russia, Sergei Markov told journalists in Baku on Thursday.

Syrian air raids on rebel positions in the northern Aleppo and southern Deraa provinces killed 30 people Thursday, including civilians, a monitoring group said. Underscoring the complexity of the mission of chemical weapons now inside the country, a regime warplane bombed the rebel-held town of Safira, an

NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said Thursday that he does not anticipate “any further role” for the military alliance in Syria. “There is no military solution to the conflict in Syria,” Rasmussen told a press conference in Athens with Greek Foreign Minister

The US, UK and France, along with the UN, have condemned the brief abduction of Libya’s PM and pledged their support for its transition to democracy. US Secretary of State John Kerry called the act “thuggery”, while UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon urged all Libyans to respect the rule of law.

French special forces killed around 10 militants in a gun battle in northern Mali this month, Paris said on Thursday. France, who sent troops into Mali in January to remove militants who had taken control over parts of the country, will not

Turkey’s parliament on Thursday extended for one year a mandate that would allow Ankara to order military strikes against Kurdish rebels holed up in neighbouring northern Iraq. The vote coincides with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s reforms to boost the rights of the country’s sizeable Kurdish community and secure an end to …

Pakistan’s Ambassador to United Nations, Masood Khan told the UN General Assembly that Islamabad was actively working to promote peace and stability in the South Asian region, and urged the international community to help Afghanistan as it negotiates critical transitions. Mr. Masood said, in a debate on Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s …