UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon says that half of Syria’s population now “urgently need humanitarian aid”. He was speaking at a donor conference in Kuwait to raise funds for the…

Israelis are filing past the body of ex-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon who has died aged 85 of heart failure after eight years in a coma. Draped in the national flag,…

Mr Sharon was a giant of the Israeli military and political scene, but courted controversy throughout his long career. He was being treated at the Sheba Medical Center outside Tel…

French President Francois Hollande says he is considering suing a magazine after it claimed he was having an affair with an actress. Mr Hollande described the report as an “attack…

A French court has ruled that a Kazakh tycoon and dissident, Mukhtar Ablyazov, should be extradited to Russia or Ukraine to face fraud charges. He is accused of stealing billions…

The trial of Egypt’s ousted President Mohammed Morsi has been adjourned after officials said bad weather had stopped his helicopter from taking off. Other defendants arrived at the police compound…

Turkey has dismissed 350 police officers in the capital Ankara in the biggest shake-up since a corruption inquiry targeting government allies. Hours later the top judiciary body said it would…

Parts of the US are braced for potentially record-breaking low temperatures as a “polar vortex” brings more freezing weather. A winter storm has already blanketed areas of Canada and the…

A South Sudan army general has been killed in an ambush as government forces advance on the rebel-held town of Bor. In Ethiopia, meanwhile, efforts to get the warring parties…

Majid al-Majid, al-Qaeda’s commander in Lebanon, has died in custody in a Beirut hospital, security sources say. The Saudi, who led the Abdullah Azzam Brigades and was on Saudi Arabia’s…