By Amy Sawitta Lefevre BANGKOK (Reuters) – One of Thailand’s leading hospitals, known for treating medical tourists, said on Friday it had received the country’s first case of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), as authorities said it had taken nearly four days to confirm the illness. Thailand said on Thursday a 75-year-old businessman from Oman, who had traveled to Bangkok for medical treatment for a heart condition, had tested positive
By Mohammed Ghobari and Tom Miles SANAA/GENEVA (Reuters) – Saudi-led warplanes bombed elite Republican Guard forces allied with the dominant Houthi faction in Yemen’s conflict on Friday, residents said, and U.N.-sponsored ceasefire talks broke off without a deal to end nearly three months of fighting. Saudi Arabia, the world’s top oil exporter, intervened militarily out of concern for what it sees as a growing Iranian sway in the Arabian Peninsula,
By Suleiman Al-Khalidi, Sylvia Westall and Tom Perry AMMAN/BEIRUT (Reuters) – Syrian insurgents say they have begun a campaign to capture full control of the divided city of Aleppo, Syria’s most populous city before it become a main battleground in its four-year-old civil war. Neither side has been able to control Syria’s main commercial hub, 50 km from Turkey, since battle erupted there in 2012, turning its UNESCO-listed historic center
By Warren Strobel WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Terrorist attacks worldwide surged by more than a third and fatalities soared by 81 percent in 2014, a year that also saw Islamic State eclipse al Qaeda as the leading jihadist militant group, the U.S. State Department said on Friday. In its annual report on terrorism, the department also charts an unprecedented flow of foreign fighters to Syria, often lured by Islamic State’s use
By Michael Holden BRADFORD, England (Reuters) – Zahoor Ahmed shakes his head in disbelief as he surveys the back of a terraced house belonging to the family of the three Dawood sisters, believed to have traveled to Syria to join Islamic State militants and brought their nine children with them. “Why would you go to Syria? The case came to light just two days after reports that Talha Asmal, a
By Tarek Amara TUNIS (Reuters) – Ten members of Tunisia’s diplomatic staff kidnapped in Libya a week ago have been freed and returned to Tunis on Friday, and the Tunisian government has shut down its consular operations in Tripoli. Armed groups in Libya have repeatedly kidnapped diplomats and foreign nationals to pressure their governments to free Libyan militants held in jails overseas. Libya’s two rival governments – one internationally recognized
Argentine Senator Gabriela Michetti will be the running mate of presidential candidate Mauricio Macri, he said on Friday, defining the battle lines ahead of an October election that will pit the business-friendly duo against the current ruling party. Macri, mayor of Buenos Aires, is second in the polls against front-runner Daniel Scioli, the provincial governor who this week picked a member of the inner circle of outgoing President Cristina Fernandez
GENEVA (AP) — U.N. envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed says peace talks in Geneva between the exiled Yemeni government and Shiite rebels who control the capital have concluded without reaching an agreement.
UNIVERSITY PLACE, Wash. (AP) — The latest from the U.S. Open (all times local):
Jerusalem (AFP) – A Palestinian opened fire on two Israeli men near a West Bank settlement on Friday, killing one and wounding the other, authorities said.