The head of the United Nations opened peace talks on Yemen on June 15 with a call for a humanitarian ceasefire, saying the country was on the verge of a collapse that the Middle East could not withstand. Ban Ki-moon said the truce, called to mark the start of the …

Seventeen people were killed in Iraq on June 15 in clashes between Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militants and pro-government forces in a town close to the country’s biggest refinery, a focal point in efforts to counter the ultra-hardline Sunni group.

For Malian troops making their first forays into the country’s north since jihadists took control, French military support provides reassurance at a time when they are strangers in their own back yard. Islamist militias linked to Al-Qaeda — some foreign fighters but most homegrown jihadists — seized the vast expanse …