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US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told Chinese President Xi Jinping on Sunday that President Donald Trump looks forward to enhancing understanding with China and the opportunity for a visit in the future. Xi said he was glad to see good progress from Tillerson’s meetings in China so far and that he and Trump expect a new stage of constructive development in bilateral relations. Tillerson said Trump places a “very high value on the communications that have already occurred” between Xi and Trump. “He looks forward to enhancing that understanding in the opportunity for a visit in the future,” Tillerson said. “We know that through further dialogue we will achieve a greater understanding that will lead to a strengthening of the ties between China and the United States, and set the tone for our future relationship of cooperation.” Xi said Tillerson had made a lot efforts to achieve a smooth transition in this new era of relations. “You said that China-U.S. relations can only be friendly....

Top US diplomat Rex Tillerson prepared to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping today just hours after a North Korean rocket engine test added new pressure on the big powers to address the threat from Pyongyang. North Korean state media said today that the isolated regime had tested a powerful engine hailed by leader Kim Jong-Un as a “new birth” for its rocket industry. The test seemed timed with the Beijing visit of the US Secretary of State, who has sought to ramp up pressure on defiant North Korea over its nuclear programme and missile threats. After talks with his counterpart Wang Yi on Saturday, Tillerson warned that regional tensions had reached a “dangerous level.” The two diplomats pledged to work together toward denuclearising Kim’s rogue regime, but did not offer clear details on how. Tillerson was to meet with Xi around 11.00 am. It was not immediately clear whether the two would discuss North Korea’s latest thumb in the eye. The North’s state news agency KCNA said Kim ha...

Saudi airstrikes in Yemen. An incoherent war on the Islamic State. A chill wind blowing away trace memories of an Arab Spring. And now, a framework nuclear agreement with Iran. A region that can simultaneously set the direction of the global economy, global politics and global climate has rarely seemed as full of contradiction: breakthrough is juxtaposed with impasse, conflict and failure. Of course, aside from the historical and geopolitical significance of the Middle East, the key link between the region and the world is through its sway over oil supplies. Yet, oil markets have been notably muted in their reactions to the turbulence of the region. Even when prices spiked on concerns that shipments through the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait would be disrupted by the Yemeni crisis, the progression of the nuclear deal with Iran acted to send them back down. What is going on? Is the Middle East’s outsized influence on oil a thing of the past? Can we bank on cheap oil forever? Does the prospect...

An adolescent girl is kidnapped from her village in Iraq and will be sold or given away to fighters of the so-called Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Isil) as a sex slave. In a detention centre in Syria, a man is sexually assaulted to punish him for his political affiliations, real or imagined. In South Sudan, a woman must make the choice between feeding her family or being attacked by armed men when she tries to harvest crops. In Bosnia, a woman passes the place where she was raped every day during the war there 20 years ago. This is the reality for women, children and men facing the threat of sexual violence in conflict around the world. This past year was one of tremendous progress in the fight against conflict-related sexual violence. In June 2014, the Global Summit to End Sexual Violence in Conflict in London brought together thousands of policymakers, researchers, civil society actors and survivors who made renewed commitments to eradicate this human rights violation. Co...

AP Afghan policemen take positions a day before the elections in Kabul on Friday. Thousands of Afghans lined up at polling centres in Kabul from early morning to cast their ballots. Afghanistan began voting Saturday for a new president amid fears of violence and insecurity.Thousands of Afghans lined up at polling centres in Kabul from early morning to cast their

If you thought weather prediction was a recent phenomenon, you would be in for a surprise if told that weather prediction was done in ancient Egypt some 3,500 years ago! A new translation of a 40-line inscription on a six-foot-tall 3,500-year-old calcite block from Egypt — called the Tempest Stela — describes rain, darkness and “the sky being in storm without cessation, louder than the cries of the masses”.

Edward Snowden’s supporters have portrayed him as the champion of Internet freedom. But when senior European and American experts privately discuss the future of cyberspace, their fear is that the Internet

The Pakistan Taliban was more a creation of the al-Qaeda than that of the Afghan Taliban under Mullah Omar

The U.N. Security Council’s swift political and military response to the civil strife in South Sudan is welcome, but the country’s troubles seem far from dissipating. When violence broke out in various districts of the world’s newest republic a fortnight ago, analysts saw it as an attempted coup against President Salva Kiir by forces under the command of former Vice President Riek Machar. Mr. Machar’s rebel troops were initially successful in taking control of several strategically important towns in South Sudan, including in the oil-rich Unity state. Since then, fighting has intensified in the country’s capital Juba and other provinces, with the United Nations reporting that “thousands” have