World

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry flies to Oman on Tuesday for Raytheon Co's signing of an estimated $2.1 billion arms deal and to consult on Syria and Iran, U.S. officials said.

A 2-mile-wide (3-km-wide) tornado tore through the Oklahoma City suburb of Moore on Monday, killing at least 51 people while destroying entire tracts of homes, piling cars atop one another, and trapping two dozen school children beneath rubble.

NEW DELHI — Doctors on Wednesday successfully carried out life-saving surgery on an Indian baby suffering from a rare disorder that caused her head to swell to nearly double its size, her neurosurgeon told AFP.

Venezuela brushed off criticism from U.S. President Barack Obama on Sunday and maintained its accusation that an American detainee in Caracas is a spy pretending to be a filmmaker.

A new bout of fighting erupted on Monday in a border area between Afghanistan and Pakistan, the latest indication of a sharp deterioration in relations between the important U.S. allies.

The United States was not given any warning before air strikes in Syria against what Western and Israeli officials say were weapons headed for Hezbollah militants, a U.S. intelligence official said on Sunday.

At least 36 people were feared dead after a fire raged through a psychiatric hospital north of Moscow on Friday, killing some patients in their beds and others who were trapped by barred windows.

The White House said on Thursday the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad had probably used chemical weapons on a small scale in the country's civil war, but insisted that President Barack Obama needed definitive proof before he would take action.

Hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan opposition supporters rallied in a staunchly pro-government part of the capital on Sunday, answering a call by their candidate Henrique Capriles and showing strength a week before the presidential election.

One person was killed and more than 80 wounded in clashes at the Coptic Orthodox Cathedral in central Cairo on Sunday after a funeral service for four Egyptian Christians killed in sectarian violence with Muslims, state media said.

China's leaders issued thinly veiled rebukes to North Korea for raising regional tensions, with the president saying no country should throw the world into chaos and the foreign minister warning that Beijing would not allow mischief on its doorstep.

North Korea said it would attack U.S. military bases on Japan and the Pacific island of Guam if provoked, a day after leader Kim Jong-un oversaw a mock drone strike on South Korea.

After an effusive welcome in Israel, President Barack Obama traveled to the occupied West Bank on Thursday for talks with Palestinian leaders who accuse him of sidelining their dream of statehood.

China said on Monday U.S. plans to bolster missile defenses in response to provocations by North Korea would only intensify antagonism, and urged Washington to act prudently.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took a first step in forming a new government on Tuesday, announcing a coalition deal with former Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and naming her to handle efforts to renew stalled diplomacy with the Palestinians.

A French soldier and more than 20 Islamist rebels were killed during what appeared to be the first clashes in the Adrar des Ifoghas mountain range where militants have taken refuge in northern Mali, French officials said on Tuesday.

A Syrian missile killed at least 20 people in a rebel-held district of Aleppo on Tuesday, opposition activists said, as the army turns to longer-range weapons after losing bases in the country's second-largest city.

The U.N. nuclear watchdog said on Thursday it had again failed to clinch a deal in talks with Iran this week on investigating suspected atom bomb research by the Islamic state.

South Korea sent a stern warning to North Korea on Thursday, two days after the North tested a nuclear bomb, saying it could strike the isolated state if it believed an attack was imminent as it deployed a new cruise missile to drive home its point.

The Yemen-based offshoot of Al Qaeda urged Muslims to sacrifice themselves and their money to help fend off what it called the "Crusader war" in Mali, according to a statement posted online on Tuesday.