Israeli President Reuven Rivlin will tell his Russian counterpart on Wednesday that any future agreement in Syria must not end up strengthening Hizbullah and and its main backer Iran, a senior Israeli official said.

The unidentified official said the main goal of Rivlin’s meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow will be to discuss the international negotiations taking place in Geneva on an agreement to end the fighting in Syria and find a political solution for the war-torn country.

Skeptics of North Korea's nuclear threat, and there are many, have long clung to two comforting thoughts.

While the North has the bomb, it doesn't have a warhead small enough to put on a long-range rocket. And it certainly doesn't have a re-entry vehicle to keep that warhead from burning up in the atmosphere before it could reach a target like, as it has suggested before, Manhattan.

Hollywood star and Special Envoy of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Angelina Jolie arrived in Lebanon on Monday night to mark the fifth anniversary of the eruption of the Syrian conflict.

She paid a visit on Tuesday to several Syrian refugee camps in the country, including those in the eastern Bekaa region of Saadnayel, where she gave a press conference under the pouring rain.

The chief executive of Liverpool, who restored stability to a club that was on the brink of bankruptcy six years ago, has decided to leave the role next year.

Ian Ayre oversaw the transition from the financially troubled ownership of American businessmen Tom Hicks and George Gillett Jr. to the takeover by John Henry's Fenway Sports Group in 2010.

Shinji Okazaki's overhead kick gave leader Leicester a 1-0 victory over Rafa Benitez's Newcastle on Monday, a goal as spectacular as his team's improbable Premier League title challenge.

As Leicester restored its five-point lead at the summit over Tottenham with eight games remaining, former Real Madrid and Liverpool coach Benitez made a losing start to his reign as Newcastle manager.

An NFL official has acknowledged a link between football and the brain disease CTE for the first time.

Jeff Miller, the NFL's senior vice president for health and safety, spoke about the connection during an appearance Monday at a congressional committee's roundtable discussion about concussions.

Two U.S.-bound missiles that were found on a passenger flight from Lebanon to Serbia had been used as part of a U.S. military training for the Lebanese army and were being shipped back after the exercise concluded, the military said in a statement on Monday.

“The missiles were being sent from Beirut to the American company that produced them. They were in the army's possession for training purposes,” the statement said.

Serbia's authorities are investigating reports that a cargo package bound for the U.S. containing two missiles with explosive warheads was found on a passenger flight from Lebanon to Serbia, The Associated Press reported on Sunday.

N1 television said the package with two guided armor-piercing missiles was discovered Saturday by a sniffer dog after an Air Serbia flight from Beirut landed at Belgrade airport.

Chancellor Angela Merkel's party braced for a backlash at key state polls Sunday over the German leader's liberal refugee policy, while the right-wing populist AfD prepared to scoop up the protest vote from angry voters.

More than 12 million voters headed to the ballot box to elect three new regional parliaments for the southwestern states of Baden-Wuerttemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate, as well as eastern Saxony-Anhalt in the so-called Super Sunday polls.

The Syrian conflict has had outsized impact on global politics. Five ways the world has changed:

RISE OF ISLAMIC STATE