Turkey is stepping up its role in the fight against Islamic State extremists after realizing the threats to its own security from jihadists and responding to pressure from its Western partners, analysts say.
Turkish security forces have over the last week arrested dozens of IS militants and sympathizers, in its most significant raids since the group began to seize swathes of neighboring Iraq and Syria in 2014.
Full StoryThe nuclear accord with Iran required a difficult series of compromises for world powers and Tehran.
For President Barack Obama, it meant climbing down from demands that Tehran halt almost all of its enrichment of potential bomb-making material and shutter an underground facility possibly impervious to an air attack. It also meant dropping pledges to secure "anytime, anywhere" inspections and Iran's complete answering of questions related to past weapons work.
Full StoryIsrael has vehemently opposed a nuclear deal with Iran and repeatedly threatened strikes against the Islamic republic, but it must now learn to live with the accord accepted by the world's major powers, analysts say.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu evoked frightening scenarios during the months the deal was being negotiated, arguing the agreement would not block Iran's path to nuclear weapons.
Full StoryWhen U.S. President Barack Obama accepted the Nobel Peace Prize early in his first term, he acknowledged the controversy surrounding his win by saying he was only at the beginning of his "labors on the world stage."
Nearly six years later, having secured a landmark nuclear deal with Iran, he has achieved a major diplomatic victory that staves off the threat of a military conflict with unforeseeable consequences in an unstable region.
Full StoryPoliticians on the far left and right accused European powers of negotiating with a "gun to the head" of Greece and terrorizing and colonizing it through Monday's new debt deal.
While the leaders of key eurozone countries expressed relief at the proposed deal, parties from Britain's right-wing UKIP to Spain's radical left Podemos said Greece had been stitched up.
Full StoryRelations between Serbia and Bosnia have remained tenuous since the end of the Bosnian conflict 20 years ago, as underscored by the stone-throwing attack on the Serbian premier at a ceremony Saturday marking the Srebrenica massacre.
Bosnia's 1992-95 inter-ethnic war left 100,000 people dead and around two million homeless, nearly half the country's population at the time.
Full StoryLike a brush fire kicking up in America's southwest, the storm brought on by Donald Trump's political bombast threatens to scorch all it touches as Republicans brace for fallout from their rival's remarks.
The billionaire tycoon's caustic, seemingly unrehearsed comments about Mexican immigrants, uttered when he launched his White House campaign in mid-June, sparked immigration debates and triggered questions about the braggadocio of a candidate unafraid to disparage fellow Republicans, and whether it hurts the party's chances in 2016.
Full StoryTheir leaders have paid their respects to the victims, begged forgiveness "on their knees," and deplored a "heinous crime," but Serbia and Serbs still stubbornly refuse to call the Srebrenica massacre a genocide, experts say.
International courts have ruled that the 1995 killing of nearly 8,000 Muslim men and boys in the ill-fated Bosnian town by Serb forces was genocide, "but here it is difficult to say that word," prominent independent political analyst Vladimir Goati said.
Full StoryAll eyes turned to the European Central Bank Monday following the resounding 'No' in Greece's referendum, as it is seen as the only institution capable of stemming market panic and preventing the Greek economy from collapsing.
In Sunday's referendum, more than 61 percent of Greeks rejected creditor demands for further austerity in return for more bailout funds, sending Greece's eurozone partners scrambling to respond.
Full StoryThe number of Cubans heading to the U.S. has surged in the months since the historic thaw in bilateral relations -- a swell experts attribute to uncertainty over the future of U.S. policy that favors such travelers.
According to the U.S. Customs Department, 9,371 Cuban migrants came into the U.S. between January and March, more than twice the number from the same period in 2014.
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