US President Barack Obama has nominated veteran diplomat David Hale as the next ambassador to Pakistan. A career foreign service official, Hale is currently the US Ambassador to Lebanon, a position he has held since 2013. Obama named him for the post yesterday and if confirmed by the Senate, Hale …

US Defence Secretary and Pentagon chief Ashton Carter said on Wednesday that the fight against the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group may take longer than the three year timeline stipulated in President Barack Obama’s force authorisation request. “I cannot tell you that our campaign to defeat ISIL (IS) would be …

Both sides in the conflict in eastern Ukraine have withdrawn most of their heavy weapons from the frontline, says Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. In an interview with state television on Monday evening Poroshenko said government forces had “withdrawn the lion’s share of multiple launch rocket systems and heavy artillery”. “We …