Taliban insurgents on Monday launched a major suicide bomb-and-gun attack against a military base in central Afghanistan. At least 126 security personnel were killed.
The key installation in Maidan Shahr, the provincial headquarters of Wardak province, was said to be manned by Afghan special forces assigned to the country's spy agency. It's about 50 kilometers from Kabul.
The raid began with a suicide bomber detonating an explosives-packed U.S.-made Humvee military vehicle before several of his partners tried to storm the base.
A suicide bomber in Syria has targeted a convoy of U.S. and allied Kurdish forces in the second attack against U.S. forces in the past week.
A U.S. military spokesman said there were no casualties among the U.S.-led coalition members.
British Prime Minister Theresa May has told lawmakers in the House of Commons how she intends to proceed with her Brexit deal.
Associated Press correspondent Charles De Ledesma reports.
Observers believe the prime minister's new plan will look a lot like the old one decisively rejected by Parliament last week although May could seek alterations to its most contentious section, an insurance policy to guarantee an open Irish border after Brexit. But the EU has insisted it will not re-negotiate the withdrawal agreement.
Britain's embattled leader also faces a fight with lawmakers who try to use amendments to rule out the possibility of Britain leaving the EU without a deal.
They will vote on May's plan B on January 29.
At least 10 have died after two Tanzanian-flagged ships caught fire in the Kerch Strait off the coast of Russian-annexed Crimea on Monday.
This is VOA news.
The European Union has imposed sanctions on Russian military intelligence chiefs over the [nerve attack, agent] nerve agent attack on a former Russian double agent in Britain last year.
The United States government on Monday called on Russia to destroy a new cruise missile system which it said was a direct and continuing violation of the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty.
Russia's communication watchdog opened "administrative proceedings" Monday against Twitter and Facebook for what it called non-compliance with country's data law.
Greece's parliament began to debate Monday a deal that would normalize Greek relations with Macedonia, a day after violent protests against the accord broke out in Athens.
Zimbabwe's President Emmerson Mnangagwa has cut short a foreign tour to deal with unrest over fuel prices. Police used force to crush protests triggered by the price of fuel being increased 150 percent.
Correspondent Columbus Mavhunga reports for VOA from Harare.
On Monday, police arrested Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions leader Japhet Moyo as he tried to leave the country. He and another leader of the protests, pastor Evan Mawarire, are now facing subversion charges. Another 600 protesters are facing charges of violence.
Morgen Komichi, the vice chairman of the Movement for Democratic Change, MDC, accused the president of directing his security forces to beat and harass activists and labor leaders involved with the protests.
The effects of the partial government shutdown are becoming increasingly noticeable, with the Transportation Security Administration reporting that many of its staff have been calling out of work because they simply can't afford to get there.
The TSA has been experiencing far higher unscheduled absences during the shutdown, with workers not getting paid, kicking off this busy M. L. K. (Martin Luther King Jr.) holiday with 8 percent of employees skipping work on Saturday compared to 3 percent a year ago. That forced screening areas to close at some airports, including BWI in Baltimore, where one of the three checkpoints has to be shut down.
Still, TSA reports nationwide most passengers waited less than 30 minutes. It expects eight million travelers to pass through its checkpoints over the long holiday weekend.
You can find more on these and other late breaking and developing stories, from around the world, around the clock, at voanews.com and on the VOA news mobile app. I'm Christopher Cruise, VOA news.
