Seoul / AFP North Korea threatened pre-emptive and “indiscriminate” nuclear strikes against South Korea and the United States on Monday, as the two allies kicked off their annual, large-scale military exercises. The drills always raise tensions on the divided Korean peninsula and the situation is particularly volatile this year, given the North’s recent nuclear test and long-range rocket launch and ...

Brussels / AFP EU leaders held a summit with Turkey’s prime minister on Monday in order to back closing the Balkans migrant route and urge Ankara to accept deportations of large numbers of economic migrants from overstretched Greece. The European Union is hardening its stance in a bid to defuse the worst refugee crisis since World War II by increasingly ...

BEIRUT / AP Syria’s opposition on Monday agreed to attend a new round of UN-sponsored peace talks set for this week in Geneva after a landmark ceasefire led to a dramatic drop in fighting. The truce between President Bashar Al Assad’s regime and non-extremist rebels, brokered by Russia and the United States, has defied expectations and led to the first ...