Pope Francis invited Israeli President Shimon Peres and Palestinian Authority Leader Mahmoud Abbas on Sunday to pray together in the hope that the gesture would help relaunch the Middle East peace process. The following is the full text of Pope Francis’ speech on Sunday.
For the first time in history, Islamic prayers and readings from the Quran will be heard at the Vatican on Sunday, in a move by Pope Francis to usher in peace between Israelis and Palestinians.
A series of car bombs exploded across Iraq’s capital Saturday night, killing at least 52 people in a day of violence that saw militants storm a university in the country’s restive Anbar province and take dozens hostage, authorities said.
Ukraine’s new president on Saturday called for pro-Russian rebels in the country’s east to lay down their arms and welcomed dialogue with the insurgents, but said he wouldn’t negotiate with those he called “gangsters and killers” and struck a defiant tone on the Russian-annexed Crimean Peninsula.
The U.S. is reassembling key members of the diplomatic team that held secret negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program, leading to a breakthrough agreement, and sending them to Geneva for direct talks with representatives from Tehran in hopes of making progress toward a comprehensive final deal.
Ten supporters of ousted Egyptian President Mohamed Morsy were sentenced to death Saturday by a criminal court in Cairo, according to state-run Al-Ahram Online.
Leaders of the Group of Seven industrialized nations decided Thursday to tighten defenses against the risk of terror attacks by European jihadists returning from the Syrian front.
The Spanish government has approved a draft bill that proposes to grant citizenship to descendants of Spanish Jews who were forced into exile 500 years ago.
An unusual survey of Iranian public opinion indicates that 40 percent of Iranians would be willing to give up any ability to produce nuclear weapons in the future in return for the full removal of sanctions.
Defending President Barack Obama’s foreign policy as one of global leadership — rather than the passive stance his critics portray — National Security Adviser Susan Rice said Friday the United States was taking important steps in Syria by offering both “lethal and non-lethal” aid to the moderate opposition fighting a bloody civil war.
Fasting for as little as three days can regenerate the entire immune system, even in the elderly, scientists have found in a breakthrough described as “remarkable”.
Scientists have successfully transplanted human stem cells into pigs that were especially genetically modified for the purpose. Once implanted, the cells thrived, leading the researchers to believe they are one step closer to finding treatments for a number of incapacitating human diseases.
The European Central Bank has introduced a raft of measures aimed at stimulating the eurozone economy, including negative interest rates and cheap long-term loans to banks.
The world’s leading industrialized nations threatened on Wednesday to impose harder-hitting sanctions on Russia if it does not help restore stability to eastern Ukraine, where pro-Russian militias continue to operate at will.
The Haqqani Network, the terrorist group that the U.S. command in Afghanistan says is its most formidable enemy — worse than the Taliban or al Qaeda — has operated for a dozen years across the border in Pakistan’s North Waziristan tribal area with little to fear other than sporadic drone strikes.
The sun has been acting strangely of late, prompting some solar physicists to suggest that once current sunspot activity peaked, which appeared to happen last fall, it could tank and remain that way for several decades.
Group of Seven leaders expressed their concern about tensions between China and a number of other Asian countries over resources in the East and South China Seas and warned against any use of force.
The West faces an Al Qaida blow-back based on Sunni foreign fighters in Syria, a report said.
Asked whether the Taliban would be inspired by the exchange to kidnap others, a commander laughed. “Definitely.”
South Sudan faces a historical famine greater than the 1984 Ethiopian famine, with 3.5 million people already suffering from acute or emergency-level food shortages. People have been displaced in the country by more than five months of fighting, and if a shaky ceasefire does not hold, the South Sudanese will not be able to return home to plant crops before the rains begin.