The US Department of Homeland Security is developing a plan right now for taking in at least 10,000 Syrian refugees over the next year, within existing budget constraints, Secretary Jeh Johnson told Reuters on September 15.

China has begun a nationwide safety inspection into all its existing nuclear facilities in the wake of an explosion at a chemical warehouse at the port of Tianjin last month that killed more than 160 people.

A Northern California wildfire ranked as the most destructive to hit the drought-stricken US West this year has killed one woman and burned some 400 homes to the ground, fire officials said on September 14, and they expect the property toll to climb.

Russia has positioned about a half dozen tanks at an airfield at the center of a military buildup in Syria, two US officials said on September 14, adding that the intentions of Moscow's latest deployment of heavy military equipment were unclear.

Germany re-imposed border controls on September 13 after Europe's most powerful nation acknowledged it could scarcely cope with thousands of asylum seekers arriving every day.

Kurdish militants killed two police officers in a car bomb attack on a checkpoint in southeast Turkey on September 13, as authorities imposed a curfew in the region's largest city Diyarbakir where clashes broke out, security sources said.

At least 16 Yemeni civilians including ten people from a single family were killed in nationwide air strikes by a Saudi-led military coalition on September 12, medics in three provinces said.

Germany and other western European powers need to work with Russia as well as the United States to solve the crisis in Syria, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on September 12.

At least 107 people were killed when a crane toppled over at Mecca's Grand Mosque on September 11, Saudi Arabia's Civil Defence authority said, less than two weeks before Islam's annual haj pilgrimage.

United Nations inspectors will be present with Iranian technicians as they take samples from a key military site, two Western diplomats said, undercutting an objection by US Republicans to the nuclear deal between Iran and world powers.