U.S. President Barack Obama insisted Tuesday that his disagreement with Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu represents a substantial policy difference and not a personal vendetta.

As the Israeli premier works to build a new coalition government at home, he faces one of the worst confrontations in his stormy relationship with the White House.

Russia and Cuba worked on their joint strategy against the U.S. economic embargo on the communist island Tuesday, during a visit by Moscow's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

Lavrov, the first Russian cabinet member to visit Cuba since Washington and Havana announced they would set aside their Cold War enmity and renew diplomatic ties, met President Raul Castro at the start of a four-country Latin American tour.

Venezuela alleged Tuesday that Spain's former socialist prime minister Felipe Gonzalez had joined a plot of ultraconservatives to overthrow President Nicolas Maduro's embattled government.

Leftist Maduro, whose country is in economic freefall after adopting a government-run economy while oil prices slide, said the leftist Spanish statesman had signed up with a group of far-right plotters in Spain, Colombia and the United States.

Yemen's descent into chaos has undermined the U.S. campaign against al-Qaida there, forcing Washington to abandon a strategy once touted as a model for counter-terrorism efforts.

President Barack Obama's decision last week to withdraw all remaining U.S. troops in Yemen from a base in the south underlined the gravity of the situation, with al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) now potentially posing an even greater danger to the West, experts and former intelligence officials said. 

U.S. President Barack Obama said Tuesday that his disagreement with Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over how to pursue a Middle East peace deal was substantive, not personal.

Netanyahu's declaration just ahead of his latest election victory that he opposes the creation of a Palestinian state angered the White House, which is still seeking a "two state" solution to the conflict.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was on Tuesday facing one of Israel's worst-ever confrontations with the White House, which has shown absolutely no sign of accepting his post-election attempts at contrition.

Just a week after winning a shock election victory, earning a third consecutive term in office, he remains mired in a diplomatic crisis with U.S. President Barack Obama's administration.

A U.S. drone strike in eastern Afghanistan has killed nine militants linked to the Pakistani Taliban in an area close to the countries' rugged border, officials said Tuesday.

The strike came in the Nasyan area of the eastern Afghan province of Nangarhar, close to the border with the Pakistani tribal district of Khyber.

President Barack Obama is to meet Tuesday with his Afghan counterpart Ashraf Ghani, who has asked Washington for "flexibility" on the pace of U.S. troop withdrawal from the war-torn country after a presence of more than a decade.

With the end of the U.S. combat mission in 2014, Afghan forces have taken over responsibility for security across the conflict-scarred nation, still wracked by a militant insurgency.

U.S. President Barack Obama hosted his would-be presidential successor Hillary Clinton at the White House on Monday, in a previously unannounced meeting.

"President Obama and Secretary Clinton enjoy catching-up in person when their schedules permit," White House press secretary Josh Earnest said.

American lawmakers voted overwhelmingly Monday to urge President Barack Obama to provide Ukraine with lethal weapons to defend itself against Russian "aggression."

The U.S. House of Representatives approved the resolution in a broadly bipartisan 348-48 vote, heaping further pressure on the Obama administration to end its delays in providing weapons and other heavy military equipment to Kiev forces.