Beny Steinmetz, the mining billionaire, was among five men detained by Israeli police for questioning on Monday in connection with an international probe into alleged fraud and money laundering. The four other people arrested included David Granot, the acting chairman of Bezeq, a leading Israeli telecoms and pay-TV company, and …

A 23-year-old Oklahoma man has been arrested after he tried to blow up a bank in downtown Oklahoma City using a vehicle bomb similar to the one that destroyed the federal building there in 1995, federal officials said Monday. The man, Jerry Drake Varnell, had been plotting the attack for …

A group of Twitter users will be indicted in Saudi Arabia on charges of harming public order for threatening the “safety and moderate ideology of society” through extremism, according to a statement on state news agency SPA. The country’s chief prosecutor summoned the Twitter users on Sunday, the statement said, …

Iran’s parliament has voted in favour of boosting investment in its missile defence and foreign operations programmes by more than $500m (£386m). The bill, which received overwhelming approval, is in response to the latest round of US sanctions against Tehran. The US imposed sanctions after a ballistic missile test in …

The White House on Sunday sought to quell criticism of President Trump’s failure to denounce by name the white supremacists behind a spate of violence in Charlottesville, a response that associates said was based largely on Trump’s own read of the hate-fueled melee with counterprotesters. In a statement, and through …

An American tourist in Germany was beaten up by a passer-by after he began giving the Nazi salute outside a cafe in Dresden, police said Sunday. The incident occurred about 8:15 a.m. Saturday as the man left a cafe called Europe in the Neustadt district of Dresden, police said in a …

The drilling ship at the center of a row between Vietnam and China over oil prospecting in disputed waters in the South China Sea has arrived in waters off the Malaysian port of Labuan, shipping data in Thomson Reuters Eikon showed on Monday. Drilling by the Deepsea Metro I ship …

A 19-year old woman has been jailed by the Israeli authorities for refusing to be conscripted into the Israel Defence Force. Noa Gur Golan is currently being held in a military prison near Haifa, having been detained for more than 30 days. She is being held in a room with …

North Korean military figures are putting the final touches on a plan to fire four missiles into the waters around the US-territory of Guam, to be presented to leader Kim Jong Un within days. In a statement last week, Gen. Kim Rak Gyom, commander of the Strategic Force of the …

Iran is holding talks with European planemaker Airbus to buy 48 helicopters for civilian use, an Iranian official was on Saturday quoted as saying, as Iran continues its shopping spree of Western aircraft after the lifting of sanctions. “The Health Ministry is planning to order 45 HEMS (Helicopter Emergency Medical …

In the middle of Emancipation Park in Charlottesville on Saturday, two young women, one white and one black, took each other’s hands and held them tightly, and with their other hands they gripped the steel barrier in front of them. A few feet away, a young white man with a …

President Donald Trump is sending his son-in-law Jared Kushner and negotiator Jason Greenblatt to the Middle East soon to meet regional leaders and discuss a “path to substantive Israeli-Palestinian peace talks,” a White House official said on Friday. Deputy national security adviser Dina Powell will also be on the trip, …

U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday threatened military intervention in Venezuela, a surprise escalation of Washington’s response to Venezuela’s political crisis that Caracas disparaged as “craziness.” Venezuela has appeared to slide toward a more volatile stage of unrest in recent days, with anti-government forces looting weapons from a military base …

Chanting “White lives matter!” “You will not replace us!” and “Jews will not replace us!” several hundred white nationalists and white supremacists carrying torches marched in a parade through the University of Virginia campus last night. The fast-paced march was made up almost exclusively of men in their 20s and …

U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday thanked Russian President Vladimir Putin for ordering the United States to slash its diplomatic staff in Russia, remarks likely to rekindle criticism of Trump’s kid-gloves handling of Putin. Breaking nearly two weeks of silence on Putin’s July 30 order cutting U.S. embassy and consulate …

Kuwaiti authorities have begun taking measures against North Korea, including stopping direct flights to and from Pyongyang, state news agency KUNA cited an official source in Kuwait’s foreign ministry as saying on Thursday. The official source said the measures included stopping entrance visas for North Korean workers and stopping the …

China has sent an “unbreakable” code from a satellite to the Earth, marking the first time space-to-ground quantum key distribution technology has been realized, state media said on Thursday. China launched the world’s first quantum satellite last August, to help establish “hack proof” communications, a development the Pentagon has called …

A U.S. warship sailed close to a Chinese man-made island in the disputed South China Sea in an operation that challenged China’s excessive territorial claims in busy international waters, a U.S. Navy official said Thursday. The official told The Associated Press that Chinese vessels were in the vicinity when the …

A low-flying Russian spy plane was spotted Wednesday over parts of Washington, D.C., and Bedminster, New Jersey, where President Trump is vacationing at his Trump National Golf Course — but the flight had been approved under a long-standing global treaty, officials said. The Russian spy plane, Tupolev Tu-154M, flew near the …

FBI agents raided the home in Alexandria, Va., of President Trump’s former campaign chairman, arriving in the pre-dawn hours late last month and seizing documents and other materials related to the special counsel investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 election. The raid, which occurred without warning on July 26, signaled …

North Korea will develop a plan by mid-August to launch four intermediate range missiles at the U.S. territory of Guam before presenting it to leader Kim Jong Un who will make a decision on whether to proceed, the North’s state media said on Thursday. The unusually detailed report on the …

A Syrian military source, under the condition of anonymity, told Al-Masdar News  on Wednesday that the Islamic State (ISIL) leader, Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, has moved his headquarters (HQ) from Raqqa City to eastern Deir Ezzor. According to the source, Al-Baghdadi is believed to be hiding somewhere between the Deir Ezzor Governorate …

The Trump administration is seeking to expand the mandate of U.N. peacekeepers in southern Lebanon so they investigate any violations by the Lebanese Shiite militant group Hezbollah on the shared border with Israel. Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said Monday that she would look for “significant …

French troops were struck by a vehicle outside a barracks in suburban Paris on Wednesday in an apparent attack that left six wounded, including two seriously, according to French police. Police said in a tweet that an operation was underway and that they were trying to track down the vehicle …

President Donald Trump’s threat to hit North Korea with “fire and fury” jolted markets from New York to Seoul even as U.S. lawmakers questioned the president’s willingness to back up the heated rhetoric. “North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States,” Trump told reporters in Bedminster, …

By Graham Fuller* — The political and economic assault against Qatar by a Saudi-led coalition so far shows no signs of succeeding in bending Qatar to its will. More seriously, it raises ominous signals for the future of geopolitics in the Arabian Peninsula. That future may have less to do …

By Jose Chalhoub   Since the Bolivarian Revolution came to power in Venezuela through Hugo Chávez’ election in 1998, its oil industry has been plagued by a myriad of political and security risks which have prevented it from developing to its full potential. Overall, it’s estimated that the Orinoco Belt …

The Pentagon has given more than 130 U.S. military bases across the United States the green light to shoot down private and commercial drones that could endanger aviation safety or pose other threats. The number of uncrewed aircraft in U.S. skies has zoomed in recent years and continues to increase …

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan accused Germany on Monday of assisting terrorists by not responding to thousands of files sent to Berlin or handing over suspects wanted by Turkish authorities. “Germany is abetting terrorists,” Erdogan told a conference in the Black Sea province of Rize, in comments likely to further escalate …

The Pentagon is considering a plan that allows the U.S. military to conduct airstrikes on ISIS in the Philippines, two defense officials told NBC News. The authority to strike ISIS targets as part of collective self-defense could be granted as part of an official military operation that may be named …

North Korea escalated its criticism of the United States, as well as its neighboring allies, on Tuesday by warning that it will mobilize all its resources to take “physical action” in retaliation against the latest round of United Nations sanctions. The statement, carried by the North’s state-run Korean Central News …

The Australian Navy has located a missing US military aircraft that crashed off Australia’s east coast on Saturday, Defense Minister Marise Payne said in a statement Monday. Three US Marines have been missing since what the Marine Corps calls a “mishap” with an MV-22 aircraft. Twenty-three of the 26 personnel …

The top US diplomat told his Russian counterpart that Moscow’s alleged meddling in the 2016 US election has seriously damaged the relationship between the two countries. Speaking at the ASEAN Regional Forum in the Philippines Monday, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said he told Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov …

South Korean President Moon Jae-in and his U.S. counterpart, Donald Trump, agreed to apply maximum pressure and sanctions on North Korea in a telephone call on Monday, while China expressed hope that North and South Korea could resume contact soon. The U.N. Security Council unanimously imposed new sanctions on North …

Al-Jazeera has denounced Israel’s decision to close the Jerusalem bureau of Qatar’s flagship satellite network, saying that the measure is “undemocratic” and that it will take legal action. Israel’s move follows in the footsteps of four Arab countries that are aligned against Qatar as part of a months-long political dispute …

The Reichstag is a magnet for tourists because it brims with German history. The meeting place of the Imperial Diet, it was torched in 1933 in a calamity that quickened Hitler’s rise and wasn’t rebuilt until after reunification more than half a century later. On Saturday, according to police, two …

Now more than ever Lebanon matters. And more than it ever has before. It matters because it continues to be a buffer zone and a contention state (be it a dysfunctional as it is now) between secularism and religious extremism. (Call them Shiite theocracy, Sunni/Wahhabi Shekidoms and Fiefdoms, etc.). The …

Germany’s Social Democrats on Sunday rejected NATO’s target of spending 2 percent of economic output on the military, and blasted German Chancellor Angela Merkel and her conservatives for kowtowing to the demands of U.S. President Donald Trump. With just over a month to go before national elections, SPD leader Martin …

The White House may appoint a senior policy adviser with hardline views on immigration, who recently sparred with reporters in a televised briefing, as its new communications director, a senior administration official said on Saturday. Stephen Miller, a top aide and speechwriter for President Donald Trump, is a candidate to …

The U.S. Navy and Marine Corps suspended their search and rescue efforts on Sunday for three U.S. Marines missing after their aircraft crashed into the sea off Australia’s northeast coast a day earlier, the U.S. Marine Corps said. The Marine Corps said they had shifted to recovery efforts in coordination …

China expressed confidence that new United Nations sanctions would help bring North Korea to the negotiating table to end its push for nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles. Foreign Minister Wang Yi urged North Korean counterpart Ri Yong-ho to calmly react to measures to curb its exports when they met on …

Toyota Motor Corp (7203.T) and Mazda Motor Corp (7261.T) plan to build a $1.6 billion U.S. assembly plant, the two said on Friday, as part of an alliance that will also see the Japanese automakers jointly develop electric vehicle technologies. The two will take small stakes in each other as …

The European Union on Friday imposed sanctions on three more Russians, including Deputy Energy Minister Andrei Cherezov, and three Russian companies over the delivery of Siemens’ turbines to Moscow-annexed Crimea. Moscow criticized the EU’s decision as an unfriendly and groundless act and said it reserved the right to take retaliatory …

The Trump administration on Friday officially told the United Nations that the U.S. intends to pull out of the 2015 Paris climate pact. But the State Department’s announcement doesn’t formally start the process of the U.S. getting out of the voluntary agreement. That’s still to come. Still, the department described …