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Egypt’s foreign ministry said it summoned Qatar’s ambassador on Saturday in protest at Doha’s criticism of the military-installed government’s crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood. Relations between the two countries have deteriorated following the Egyptian…

Manchester United striker Wayne Rooney will miss the FA Cup third-round meeting with Swansea City on Sunday due to a groin injury, manager David Moyes has revealed. The England striker, 28, has been nursing the problem for the last few weeks and sat…

Manchester City manager Manuel Pellegrini has waded into the debate about diving in football by claiming that “players are always trying to cheat”. FIFA president Sepp Blatter broached the issue earlier this week when he called for tougher sanctions…

Americans rekindle their peculiar love affair with the post-Edwardian demise of English aristocracy on Sunday when season four of “Downton Abbey” premieres on US public television. The internationally-acclaimed period drama set in a grand old Yorkshire…

US President Barack Obama played golf with New Zealand Prime Minister John Key in Hawaii, in a rare vacation encounter with a foreign official. The statesmen hit the green at a US Marine Corps base on the northeastern coast of the island of Oahu. Obama…

A newly formed Syrian rebel alliance has declared war on the powerful Al-Qaeda-affiliated Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and joined other opposition groups in battling the extremists. “We, the Army of the Mujahideen, pledge to defend ourselves…

Face-to-face talks between warring parties in South Sudan have been delayed, government and rebel delegations said on Saturday, dashing hopes of a swift ceasefire to end raging battles and risks of all-out civil war. South Sudan Information Minister…

Sydney kicked off New Year celebrations with a dazzling fireworks display, the first in a wave of pyrotechnics to usher in 2014 from Hong Kong to world record-chasing Dubai. Seven tonnes of explosives lit up Australia’s biggest city, with fireworks…

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott on Friday hailed Nelson Mandela as “a truly great man” after the anti-apartheid hero died in South Africa aged 95. “Nelson Mandela was one of the great figures of Africa, arguably one of the great figures of the…