DONETSK — After months of fighting in eastern Ukraine, the presence of the Ukrainian military and the shelling of civilian neighborhoods seem to be pushing more men to join the rebellion. New recruits for the Russia-backed separatist army, part of a battalion of Don Cossacks, are on their way out of Donetsk to a piece of wasteland for weapons training. Some fighters joining the rebellion from Russ

Jordan executed two militants at dawn Wednesday in response to the Islamic State group killing one of its pilots. The militants included Sajida al-Rishawi, an Iraqi woman who was on death row for her role in a 2005 suicide bombing in Amman. The Islamic State had demanded she be released. Jordanian authorities executed her a day after a video emerged online appearing to show the militant group burn

U.S. President Barack Obama condemned a reported Hamas attack on Israeli soldiers in Gaza as a violation of the newly reached humanitarian cease-fire and called for the release of an Israeli soldier allegedly held hostage. "That soldier needs to be released as soon as possible," he told reporters at an afternoon news conference on Friday at the White House. President Obama said he has "unequivocal

Video Transcription: BEIJING — When chemicals recently contaminated a river in China’s northern Shanxi province, it took authorities five days to report the incident. While the mayor offered an apology and chemical plant officials were dismissed, the spill ended up affecting drinking water in several cities downstream. It also dealt another blow to public confidence in the government. Official sta

Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir welcomes his South Sudanese counterpart Salva Kiir for his first visit since southern secession to discuss key unresolved issues that have undermined north-south relations, during his arrival at Khartoum Airport, Sudan, Oc A prominent member of Sudan’s ruling National Congress Party (NCP) says the country is officially in a state of war with South Sudan. Rabie Abde

VOA correspondent Steve Herman was the first of two American reporters to gain entry to the grounds of the crippled Fukushima Daiichi ('daiichi' means 'one' in Japanese) nuclear power plant on Wednesday. But the duo was permitted no farther than the main gate. Since the March 11 magnitude 9.0 earthquake and subsequent tsunami destroyed part of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant here, few re

Gunmen killed two U.N. peacekeepers in Sudan's Darfur region Saturday, one day after three others were killed in the same area. A spokesman for the peacekeeping mission in Darfur, Kemal Saiki, said two Rwandan peacekeepers were killed at a refugee camp in northern Darfur. Saiki said the soldiers were distributing water in the Shangil Tobaya settlement when at least one gunman opened fire on them.

It’s time for international peacekeepers to prepare to leave the Sudan’s Darfur region, said the Sudanese ambassador to the United Nations, Abdalmahmoud Abdalhaleem, The war in Darfur is over, he said, and with peace in sight, the U.N.-African Union Peacekeeping Mission (UNAMID) should plan for an exit strategy. Ambassador Abdalhaleem was responding to a new report by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki