Canada's Prime Minister-designate Justin Trudeau, who came from behind to trounce his Conservative rivals and snatch a majority mandate, now has to deliver on pledges from tackling climate change to legalizing marijuana.
Iraq has begun bombing Islamic State insurgents with help from a new intelligence center with staff from Russia, Iran and Syria, a senior parliamentary figure said on Tuesday about cooperation seen as a threat to U.S. interests in the region.
Eight senior figures from Islamic State were killed in an air strike while meeting in a town in western Iraq, but the group's reclusive leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi did not appear to be among them, residents of the town and hospital sources said.
Croatia threatened to close its border with Serbia on Thursday as migrants fled from overwhelmed police, trekked through fields and tried to steal into Slovenia by train in a desperate march westwards that is sowing discord and recrimination in Europe.
France's Prime Minister Manuel Valls said on Tuesday a deal with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to reach a political transition was impossible, but said Paris would back regional ground troops if they were to intervene against Islamic State militants.
Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri called on young Muslim men in the United States and other Western countries to carry out attacks inside there and urged greater unity between militants.
Russian forces have begun participating in military operations in Syria in support of government troops, three Lebanese sources familiar with the political and military situation there said on Wednesday.
France warned on Tuesday that it would be a mistake for Europe to take in all refugees persecuted by Islamic State militants in Syria and Iraq, and called for a plan of action to ensure the Middle East's diversity remained despite the mounting crisis.
While the desperate flight of Syrians from their country's war was dominating news bulletins this summer, yet another diplomatic push to end the four-year-old conflict was quietly running into the sand.
When Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, fellow Gulf states raced to shelter thousands of displaced Kuwaitis. Fast forward 25 years, and the homeless from Syria's nearby war have found scant refuge in the Arab world's richest states.
Conflicts across the Middle East and North Africa are preventing more than 13 million children from attending school, leaving their hopes and futures shattered, the United Nations Children's Fund said in a report issued on Thursday.
Russia is delaying the launch of an international investigation aimed at assigning blame for chemical weapon attacks in Syria, U.N. Security Council diplomats said on Wednesday, though Moscow's U.N. envoy said the holdup was for technical reasons.
A ship bringing about 1,800 migrants and refugees from an eastern Greek island to the port of Piraeus arrived on Tuesday night, the Greek coastguard said.
Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said the battle over the northern town of Baiji and its refinery - Iraq's largest - was critical to the fight against Islamic State.
The month before he killed 16 Afghan civilians in a shooting rampage, Army Staff Sergeant Robert Bales bloodied the nose of an Afghan truck driver in an assault that was not reported to his camp commanders, according to a report released on Tuesday.
Iraq's prime minister dismissed his cabinet secretary on Wednesday as part of an ambitious reform drive he said was under threat from corrupt politicians and Shi'ite militia leaders who use their armed followers for political ends.
The United States announced tighter security measures on Thursday for visitors from the 38 countries in its visa waiver program, which include European nations that have seen hundreds of residents traveling to fight with militant groups in Syria and Iraq.
The head of one of Iraq's fiercest Shi'ite militias called the U.S.-led coalition's campaign against Islamic State ineffective and accused Washington of lacking the will to uproot radical Sunni jihadis controlling large swathes of Iraq and Syria.
NATO offered political support for Turkey's campaign against militants in Syria and Iraq at an emergency meeting on Tuesday, and President Tayyip Erdogan signaled the alliance may have a "duty" to become more involved.
