Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo was sworn in for a second term yesterday, as helicopters flew overhead and troops kept watch in the capital Jakarta -- days after Islamist militants tried to assassinate his top security minister.

US forces withdrew from their largest base in northern Syria yesterday, a monitor said, as Turkey accused Kurdish forces of killing one of its soldiers in fighting that tested a fragile truce.

Israeli security guards at a West Bank crossing into Israel shot dead a Palestinian assailant who ran at them with a knife on Friday, the Israeli defence ministry said.

At least 62 people are killed by a blast inside an Afghan mosque during Friday prayers, according to officials, a day after the United Nations said violence in the country had reached "unacceptable" levels.

US President Donald Trump has hailed his surprise decision to withdraw US troops from Syria as “strategically brilliant”, declaring that the Kurds were “not angels”.

Thirty-five foreigners were killed and four others injured when a bus collided with another heavy vehicle near the Muslim holy city of Madina, Saudi state media said yesterday.

An “unprecedented” number of civilians were killed or wounded in Afghanistan from July to September this year, the United Nations said in a new report released yesterday, calling the violence “totally unacceptable”.

Qatar’s government said yesterday it adopted a new minimum wage law and will scrap mandatory exit visas for all workers, part of a broad labour reform program ahead of its hosting of the 2022 World Cup.

Saudi Arabia and the Palestinians yesterday agreed to establish a joint economic committee and a business council, as the Palestinian Authority faces a financing gap that could top $1.8 billion.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s brother entered prison yesterday to begin a five-year sentence after he was convicted of corruption, the semi-official ISNA news agency reported, citing his lawyer.

At least three people were killed and about 20 children wounded when a Taliban truck bomb detonated near a rural police station and partially destroyed a nearby religious school, Afghan officials said.

Hundreds of people were killed or wounded in violence related to Afghanistan’s recent presidential election season as the Taliban sought to undermine the democratic process, a UN agency said yesterday.

A diet heavy on cheap, modern food like instant noodles that fills bellies but lacks key nutrients has left millions of children unhealthily thin or overweight in southeast Asia, experts say.

Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday arrived in Saudi Arabia, where he was set to seal oil agreements and try to use his influence to defuse tensions boiling in the Gulf.

Suspected missile strikes hit an Iranian oil tanker off the Saudi coast yesterday, its owner said, the first Iranian vessel targeted since a spate of attacks in the Gulf Washington blamed on Tehran.

World governments reacted with concern after Turkey launched a military offensive on Kurdish forces in northern Syria, while the UN Security Council plans to hold an emergency meeting to discuss the assault. Here are some of the initial comments following the start

Saudi Arabia announced Wednesday it will allow women in the ultra-conservative kingdom to serve in the armed forces as it embarks on a broad programme of economic and social reforms.

Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi on Wednesday promised a full probe into last week’s violence that left more than 100 dead in anti-government protests, as calm returned after three days of national mourning begins.

War-ravaged Yemen is on course to become the world’s poorest country if the conflict persists, the United Nations said in a report. “If fighting continues through 2022

Thousands of Iranian women fans are to attend a football match freely today for the first time in decades, after FIFA threatened to suspend the country over its controversial male-only policy.