Barack Obama and Raul Castro held the first face-to-face talks between US and Cuban leaders since 1956 in Panama on Saturday, vowing to pursue their historic effort to bury Cold War-era antagonism. Sitting together in a blue-carpeted room, Obama thanked Castro for his “spirit of openness and courtesy” during their interactions, while the communist leader stressed that the negotiations will require patience. Obama also sought to calm tensions with another leftist nation, speaking briefly with Venezuelan President Nicolas...

Iran and world powers reached a framework agreement on Thursday on curbing Iran’s nuclear program for at least a decade, a step toward a comprehensive accord that could end 12 years of brinkmanship, threats and confrontation. The tentative agreement, after eight days of marathon talks in Switzerland, clears the way for talks on the future settlement that should allay Western fears that Iran was seeking to build an atomic bomb and in return lift economic sanctions on the Islamic Republic. The framework is contingent on r...

More than a dozen debt-laden farmers have committed suicide in recent weeks in India, and discontent in many rural areas against government policies is turning into anger against Prime Minister Narendra Modi less than a year after he swept into office. Unseasonal storms have badly damaged the winter crop in large parts of the fertile northern plains, most likely contributing to the suicides, and villagers have blamed Modi for not stepping in to help th...

When German Chancellor Angela Merkel was in Japan earlier this month, local coverage focused on a joint German-Japanese statement about the Ukraine crisis and her comment that Japan should forthrightly address its actions during World War II. She said nothing about how Japan and Germany have diverged on nuclear energy, and reportedly she and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe didn’t discuss it with each other. Germany decided to abandon nuclear power in 2011 as a direct result of the Fukushima No. 1 reactor disaster. The chancellor, a tr...

Vikas Swarup, who became famous as the author of ‘Q&A,’ the book that was made into the Oscar winning blockbuster ‘Slumdog Millionaire’, is set to take up responsibility as Spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), India. Swarup, a 1986 batch Indian Foreign Service officer, will continue to remain in the limelight in a new role, reports the Economic Times. Starting mid-April, he will succeed Syed Akbaruddin, who will be the chief coordinator for the India-Africa Summit to be held here in October and...

The European Union and Cuba agreed to speed up the pace of talks on improving bilateral relations, hoping to reach the basics of a deal by the end of 2015, EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said on Tuesday. The EU and Cuba began negotiations in April last year to rewrite their bilateral political agreement, part of a deepening of ties since the 28-nation bloc lifted diplomatic sanctions in 2008. But they only managed three meeting in 11 months, prompting the Europeans to suggest a quicker pace, which the Cubans agreed to, Mogherini told reporters in H...