By Michael Georgy, Isabel Coles and John Davison | MOSUL, Iraq MOSUL, Iraq Iraq’s sectarian political leaders have plunged back into a dispute over the status of Shi’ite armed groups, undermining efforts to reunite the country as its troops press on with the assault of Mosul, Islamic State’s biggest stronghold. Forty days into the biggest ground offensive in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion of 2003, about a […]
It was not just the manner in which Rosberg succeeded, and his generosity in praising his teammate, but also the contrasting style with which Hamilton lost the title, that defined this final duel of the 2016 season. Continue reading the main story With just 12 points between them before the race, and Rosberg leading the series, Hamilton, who started from the pole position — with Rosberg starting […]
By Isabel Coles | GOGJALI, Iraq GOGJALI, Iraq Until three weeks ago, many of Abu Osama’s customers were Islamic State militants who brought their wives and children to his pharmacy on the eastern edge of Mosul for injections and treatment. Now, most of them are Iraqi security forces who recaptured the Gogjali neighborhood earlier this month and are pushing further into the city, which has been under […]
JERUSALEM Israel’s security cabinet on Sunday approved the purchase of an additional 17 Lockheed Martin F-35 stealth fighter jets, bringing its total number on order to 50. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement the decision to increase the order was unanimous. Lockheed is developing three versions of the F-35 Lightning II jets for the U.S. military and nine countries that have already placed orders – […]
JERUSALEM — The Israeli military said it had killed four militants linked to the Islamic State on Sunday after they attacked Israeli forces in the Golan Heights. The confrontation appeared to be the first of its kind between Israel and Islamic State-affiliated forces based in Syria. It was not immediately clear if the militants’ attack was spontaneous or if it signaled a possible change of policy by […]
Viktor Bout, the suspected Russian arms dealer who has been fighting his prosecution in the U.S. for almost a decade, is nearing the end of his legal options. A federal appeals court in Manhattan on Monday denied Mr. Bout’s bid for a new trial, limiting his hopes of overturning his 2011 conviction. Mr. Bout, dubbed the “Merchant of […] (via WSJ)
KINSHASA An ethnic Nande militia in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo killed about 30 civilians, mostly Hutus, on Sunday morning, local sources said, in an apparent escalation of deadly violence between the two groups that has flared repeatedly this year. Joy Bokelele, territorial administrator in North Kivu province’s Lubero territory, told Reuters that fighters from the Mai Mai Mazembe militia attacked the village of Luhanga around 5 […]
Israeli aircraft killed four Islamic State-linked gunmen on Sunday after they fired mortars and shot at troops patrolling along the occupied Golan Heights, the military said. Israel has often responded to errant fire from the Syrian civil war, but exchanges of fire with gunmen on the Golan have been rare since the fighting began more than five years ago. The militants fired at the Israeli soldiers, who […]
DUBAI Iran may seek to set up naval bases in Yemen or Syria in the future, as distant footholds might be more valuable militarily than nuclear technology, the chief of staff of the Iranian armed forces said in remarks published on Sunday. “We need distant bases, and it may become possible one day to have bases on the shores of Yemen or Syria, or bases on islands […]
“We have lost everything, our infrastructure, and we have nothing left to lose,” he said. “Now it is a long war of attrition.” Photo A nonfunctioning cement factory in Amran, Yemen, that was bombed twice by the Saudi-led coalition. Credit Tyler Hicks/The New York Times The Houthis’ control of such key territory has made them essential to international efforts to end the conflict, leaving policy makers and […]
Nov 24, 2016 10:02 am IST President-elect Donald Trump has chosen the first women for posts in his administration, picking South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley to serve as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and school-choice advocate Betsy DeVos as his secretary of education, his transition team said Wednesday. Ms. Haley long held reservations about Mr. Trump’s candidacy during the GOP primary, and endorsed both Sens. […]
With violence escalating in Aleppo and elsewhere across war-ravaged Syria, the United Nations said Saturday that the number of children trapped in besieged areas had doubled in less than a year to half a million. A report by Unicef, the United Nations Children’s Fund, said the children were among hundreds of thousands of civilians in 16 areas under siege across the country who had been “almost completely […]
By Alexandra Ulmer | CARACAS CARACAS Venezuela’s ruling socialists mourned former Cuban leader Fidel Castro, while opposition hardliners exulted over the death of a man they call a dictator who helped wreck the economy and whose country has for years got an easy ride with subsidized oil. The two leftist Latin American governments became intimate allies under Castro and his younger disciple, the late Venezuelan leader Hugo […]
Nov 24, 2016 10:04 am IST NEW DELHI—Unable to spend or deposit their sackfuls of large bank notes amid India’s crackdown on hoarding cash, business owners across the country are paying employees months of salary in advance, ringing up bogus sales and even buying gold they can smuggle overseas to get rid of stashed money or conceal its source. Such illegal workarounds are threatening to undercut Prime […]
As mourners carried the coffin of a slain Hezbollah commander, they moved quickly to wipe away blood still dripping from his body — it had been washed in haste as it was rushed from the battlefields of Aleppo to its final resting place in Lebanon. While Russian war planes and bombs have dominated headlines about outside intervention in Syria’s five-year conflict, thousands of those fighting on the […]
BEIRUT Syrian government and allied forces seized large parts of an important district in rebel-held eastern Aleppo on Saturday but fierce fighting for control of the residential area continued, rebels, pro-government media and a monitor said. Government forces have advanced with a ground and air assault on the edge of the besieged eastern half of the city, a move the rebels say is designed to split their […]
Photo Residents of the Tahir district of Mosul, which had been liberated from the Islamic State a few hours before, on Nov. 16. Credit Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times CHICAGO — The ancient Assyrians considered the Tigris River the division between East and West, and the city I come from in Iraq is called Mosul — connection point, in Arabic — because it connects these […]
By Karin Strohecker | LONDON LONDON Turkey’s rapprochement with Russia has not changed Ankara’s position that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad must go to restore peace in the country, Turkish deputy prime minister Numan Kurtulmus said on Saturday. Russia is Assad’s main military backer while Turkey backs the rebels fighting to oust him in the six year old conflict. “We are in the same position, Assad has committed […]
Amid increasing social unrest, a collapsing currency (against the dollar), and an economy at a standstill, there has been another growing fear in India that has spooked many around the world. The rumors and speculation of an Indian gold import ban (or even an outright ban on gold ownership) have sparked panic-buying of the precious metal sending retail premia soaring at local jewelers. In an effort to […]
Saudi Arabia pulled out of planned talks with non-OPEC nations including Russia as disagreements about how to share the burden of supply cuts stood in the way of a deal to boost prices just days before a make-or-break meeting in Vienna. OPEC officials were scheduled to meet with non-members including Russia on Monday before a ministerial meeting in Vienna two days later. The meeting was later canceled […]
November 26, 2016 by: Madison Marriage in London and Andres Schipani in Bogotá Fidel Castro, the controversial Cuban leader who seized power in 1959 and ruled over the communist state for the following five decades, has died aged 90. Castro came to power as a charismatic guerrilla leader after his army of revolutionaries marched into Havana 49 years ago when he was just 32 years old. His […]
By Vladimir Soldatkin and Diego Oré | MOSCOW/CARACAS MOSCOW/CARACAS World leaders paid tribute on Saturday to Fidel Castro, the Cuban revolutionary leader who built a communist state on the doorstep of the United States, but in death just as in life he divided opinion, and critics labelled him a “tyrant”. Castro died on Friday aged 90, his younger brother and successor Raul Castro announced on state television. […]
He seized power audaciously in 1959 and commanded to the last a powerful personal following inside and outside Cuba. But during more than half a century in office Fidel Castro, who has died at the age of 90, metamorphosed from a popular and charismatic guerrilla leader into a traditional caudillo, an autocratic holdover from another age. At his life’s end, although bolstered by the emergence of a […]
As Tropical Storm Hermine charged up the East Coast Sept. 2, the hangar at NASA Langley was able to carefully sandwich in more than a dozen Air Force fighters and offer them protection from the wind. The hangar provides 85,200 square feet (7,915 square meters) of open space and large door dimensions that allow for entry of big aircraft. Source link
