A top Republican has said US President Donald Trump remains committed to defeating Islamic State (IS) in Syria, despite his plan to withdraw US troops. Senator Lindsey Graham suggested the withdrawal had been slowed and he was now reassured of the president’s commitment after meeting him on Sunday. Mr Trump’s troop pullout plan met strong […]

Police in Egypt have killed dozens of militants during security raids on their hideouts, the interior ministry has said. The raids killed “40 terrorists” in Giza and North Sinai on Saturday morning, according to a statement from the ministry. It said the militants were planning a series of attacks on tourist sites, churches and military […]

WASHINGTON  – President Donald Trump threatened on Friday to close the southern U.S. border unless Congress agrees to provide $5 billion in taxpayer funds for a border wall with Mexico, blaming Democrats for a partial government shutdown that he previously said would be on him. A dispute over funding for Trump’s proposed wall has led […]

The alert level for Indonesia’s Anak Krakatau volcano has been raised to the second-highest level possible, after a series of eruptions. All flights around the volcano have been rerouted and a 5km (three-mile) exclusion zone has also been imposed. Indonesia’s disaster management agency (BNPB) said the alert level had been raised from level two to […]

CARACAS  – Last July 6, Major General Manuel Quevedo joined his wife, a Catholic priest and a gathering of oil workers in prayer in a conference room at the headquarters of Petroleos de Venezuela SA, or PDVSA. The career military officer, who for the past year has been boss at the troubled state-owned oil company, […]

Japan says it is to restart commercial whaling in July in a move that is likely to draw international criticism. It said it would withdraw from the International Whaling Commission (IWC), the body tasked with whale conservation. Commercial whaling was banned by the IWC in 1986 after some species were driven almost to extinction. Officials […]

Deputies are investigating a Christmas Eve shooting near a South Florida shopping mall that killed a heroic K9 officer named Cigo. The dog was credited with saving the life of the deputies, Sheriff Ric Bradshaw of the Palm Beach Sheriff’s Office said at a news conference Monday evening. “He did his job, giving his life to save and […]

The death toll following the tsunami caused by the Anak Krakatau volcano has risen to at least 373, Indonesia’s disaster mitigation agency says. Saturday saw giant waves crash into coastal towns on the islands of Sumatra and Java. It is thought that volcanic activity set off undersea landslides which in turn generated the killer waves. […]

More than 220 people have been killed and 843 injured after a tsunami hit coastal towns on Indonesia’s Sunda Strait, government officials say. There was no warning of the giant waves which struck at night, destroying hundreds of buildings, sweeping away cars and uprooting trees. It is thought undersea landslides from the Anak Krakatau volcano […]

A top US official in the fight against the Islamic State group has quit over President Trump’s decision to pull troops from Syria, reports say. Brett McGurk, the US special presidential envoy for the Global Coalition to Defeat IS, brought his departure forward from February. Before Mr Trump’s announcement he had insisted that the US […]