As regional war rages, Syria’s Assad faces setbacks
BEIRUT/AMMAN (Reuters) – In the course of a week, several setbacks for President Bashar al-Assad have provided fresh reminders of the strains facing the Syrian army and its allies in the four-year-long struggle for Syria.
China’s foreign minister to visit Moscow next week
MOSCOW (Reuters) – Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi will visit Russia from April 6-8 to discuss contacts between the two countries’ presidents, Russia’s Foreign Ministry said on Thursday.
Israeli court tells army to re-route planned Bethlehem-area barrier
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel’s Supreme Court ordered the military on Thursday to draw up new routes for a planned section of Israel’s barrier in the occupied West Bank that had threatened to separate a monastery and convent of the same Catholic order.
Sri Lanka government unlikely to allow Dalai Lama visit-official
COLOMBO (Reuters) – Sri Lankan Buddhist monks have invited exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama to make his first visit to the island, after a strongly pro-China government was voted out in January, but an official said Colombo was unlikely to allow it. 
China angered after U.S. fighter jets land in Taiwan
BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s Foreign Ministry expressed anger on Thursday after two U.S. fighter jets landed in Taiwan, in a rare official contact between the militaries of the United States and the self-ruled democratic island.
New Pakistani military courts sentence six to death
ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – Pakistan’s new military courts have sentenced six men to death for involvement in terrorism and a seventh to life imprisonment, the military spokesman said on Thursday.
British student who joined Islamic State wants to go home: Turkish MP
ANKARA (Reuters) – A 19-year-old British woman, one of a group of medical students that includes seven Britons, an American and a Canadian thought to have traveled to join the Islamic State group, has told her family she wants to go home, a Turkish law…
Iranian-British woman pardoned for Tehran volleyball protest
LONDON (Reuters) – An Iranian-British woman, jailed in Tehran last year for taking part in a protest against a ban on women attending some men’s sporting events, has been pardoned, Britain’s Foreign Office said on Thursday.
Buhari win means Nigeria, not Chad, to lead Boko Haram fight
DAKAR (Reuters) – When Chadian troops occupied parts of northern Nigeria in the 1980s, Nigerian Major-General Muhammadu Buhari chased them back across the border in a show of strength months before he seized power in a military coup.
West losing influence in Congo at political crossroads
KINSHASA (Reuters) – The expiry of Congolese President Joseph Kabila’s second mandate next year, a crucial test of governance, risks exposing the limitations of Western donors trying to promote democracy and transparency in return for the billions they…
