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Syria

BEIJING The European Union wants China to help prevent migrants and refugees using Chinese-made inflatable boats to get into the bloc by stopping the boats reaching them, the European Commissioner for Migration said on Thursday. Dimitris Avramopoulos, speaking to reporters in Beijing after meeting Chinese Minister for Public Security Guo Shengkun, said the rubber boats used by people smugglers were made in China. “The rubber boats used […]

Still, the Iraqi forces face hundreds of militants who appear determined to fight to the end in neighborhoods still teeming with hungry and increasingly desperate civilians. Continue reading the main story The new operation will also require careful synchronization among the Iraqi Army, Interior Ministry troops and the Counterterrorism Service, which report to different authorities in Baghdad and sometimes seem to be fighting separate wars. Tensions among […]

BAGHDAD/ERBIL, Iraq Iraq’s armed forces opened a new front against Islamic State in Mosul on Thursday, advancing on the militants’ enclave from the northwest, a military commander told Reuters. The army’s 9th Armoured Division and the Rapid Response units of the Interior Ministry were headed towards the city, he said. The attack would help the elite Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS) and Interior Ministry Federal Police troops who were painstakingly […]

The insurgent groups suspended participation in the talks on Wednesday to protest what they described as heavy bombing by the Syrian government’s Russian-backed forces the day before that killed dozens, including civilians. Continue reading the main story The Russian proposal does not specify measures to prevent government warplanes from carrying out such bombings. Rebels said they remained suspicious of Russian guarantees, regardless, because Russia has been unable […]

BEIRUT: A large explosion shook a rebel-held Syrian town along the border with Turkey on Wednesday, killing at least five people and wounding others.The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said a car bomb went off in the town of Azaz close to the offices of the Syrian interim government, which represents the opposition in rebel-held areas. The Observatory and the activist-run Azaz Media Center confirmed the […]

GENEVA Yemen faces a “famine of Biblical proportions”, veteran aid expert Jan Egeland warned on Wednesday during a visit to the war-battered nation, expressing fury over the failure of the “men with guns and power” to end the crisis. Yemen’s two years of civil war have pitted the Iran-aligned Houthi rebel group against a Saudi-backed coalition, causing economic collapse and severely restricting the food and fuel imports […]

By James Pearson and Alexei Chernyshev | SEOUL/VLADIVOSTOK, Russia SEOUL/VLADIVOSTOK, Russia When North Korean leader Kim Jong Un sent Lunar New Year greetings this year, the first card went to Russian President Vladimir Putin, ahead of leaders from China and other allies of the isolated country, according to its official news agency. Some academics who study North Korea argue Kim could be looking for Russia to ease […]

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China plans to launch its own online encyclopaedia next year, hoping to build a “cultural Great Wall” that can rival Wikipedia as a go-to information source for Chinese Internet users who Beijing fears are being corrupted by foreign influences China plans to launch its own online encyclopaedia next year, hoping to build a “cultural Great Wall” that can rival Wikipedia as a go-to information source for Chinese […]

By Ben Blanchard | BEIJING BEIJING China on Wednesday called on all parties in the Korean standoff to stay calm and “stop irritating each other” a day after North Korea said the United States was pushing the region to the brink of nuclear war. The United States has urged China, reclusive North Korea’s lone major ally, to do more to rein in its neighbour’s nuclear and missile […]

A big part of that is its watering down of the anti-Semitic language of the original Hamas charter in 1988, with its talk of war between Arabs and Jews. “We are making it clear that ours is a liberation project — not about religion or the Jews,” Mr. Meshal said in an interview on Tuesday in Doha, his latest home. Continue reading the main story His offer […]

BEIRUT A bomb blast killed at least four people and wounded many more in a rebel-held town in northern Syria near the Turkish border on Wednesday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said. The explosion hit the town of Azaz, which has long been an important base for rebels, including groups backed by Turkey. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the blast, which […]

By Matt Spetalnick | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON Donald Trump’s national security adviser described his boss’s foreign policy approach as “disruptive” on the eve of the U.S. president’s first White House meeting with the Palestinian leader, saying his unconventional ways could create an opportunity to ultimately help stabilize the Middle East. Trump faces deep skepticism at home and abroad over his chances for a breakthrough with Palestinian President Mahmoud […]

BEIRUT An aid convoy of food and medical supplies has reached the besieged Syrian town of Douma for the first time since October, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Tuesday. Along with the United Nations and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, the ICRC went into Douma with 51 trucks loaded with aid for 35,000 people, it said on Twitter. A U.N. official in […]

If you stand close to one of Marwan Sahmarani’s paintings and examine a small section, you find yourself being pulled into a swirling mass of colour and texture, a seemingly abstract formation of thickly-applied oil paints. It is testament to the Lebanese artist’s mastery of the medium that, as his viewers take in each work as a whole, its stories reveal themselves easily. In his latest show, […]

Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin discussed paths towards peace in Syria on Tuesday, in the first sign of practical interaction between the American and Russian presidents since Rex Tillerson, US secretary of state, visited Moscow last month. The call, only the second time the two leaders have spoken since Mr Trump took office in January, was the first sign that Moscow and Washington might be acting on […]

Photo A nurse with a wounded patient at a hospital in Hasaka, Syria, on Tuesday after an attack by the Islamic State. Credit Delil Souleiman/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images BEIRUT, Lebanon — Islamic State militants attacked a checkpoint on Tuesday used by refugees fleeing fighting in Syria and Iraq, killing more than three dozen people, according to local Kurdish militants and monitoring groups. It was one of […]

Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany, arrived in Abu Dhabi on Monday on an official state visit, state news agency WAM reported. Upon her arrival at the Presidential Airport, Merkel was greeted by Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces. An official reception ceremony was held in honour of the German Chancellor, where both the […]

By Andreas Rinke and Denis Pinchuk | SOCHI, Russia SOCHI, Russia German Chancellor Angela Merkel, on a rare visit to Russia, said that Berlin and Moscow had to keep talking despite their disagreements, but those same differences overshadowed her talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday. At a news conference following a meeting in the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi, diverging positions were aired over […]

May 2, 2017 by: Najmeh Bozorgmehr in Tehran Iran’s hardliners are committed to the nuclear deal with world powers even as they use the accord to attack President Hassan Rouhani ahead of elections this month, a senior hardline politician said. The agreement was a “done deal” and there would be no attempts to sabotage it, said Alireza Zakani, a senior figure in the hardliners’ camp and a […]

Dr. Steve Pieczenik, the consummate intelligence insider, made a bold claim on the Alex Jones show today, suggesting the National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster and Jared Kushner were behind a counter revolution to silence the alt-right. He cited the outing of General Flynn, the demotion of Stephen Bannon, Gorka and others, as evidence that something was happening inside the White House to silence the movement that got […]

WASHINGTON U.S. President Donald Trump will speak by telephone with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday at 12:30 p.m. EDT/1630 GMT, the White House said on Monday night. A senior Trump administration official said the two leaders would likely discuss the war in Syria, where Moscow backs the government of Bashar al-Assad and the United States supports rebels trying to overthrow him. (Reporting by Eric Beech and […]

The Syrian government and its main ally, Russia, deny that it uses such tactics. At a news conference held at United Nations headquarters in New York to release the report’s findings, the executive director of Human Rights Watch, Kenneth Roth, ridiculed what he described as “preposterous” assertions by the Syrian and Russian governments denying responsibility. Photo An inspection of damage to a hospital in the Aleppo area […]

DUBAI: Arab League chief Ahmed Abul Gheit warned Monday that Iran and Israel were the main beneficiaries of turmoil across the Arab world, which he described as the worst he has ever seen.“I have never seen anything worse than what we are now seeing,” Abul Gheit said at the Arab Media Forum in Dubai.“Iran is enjoying what the Arab world is going through. There are those in […]

DUBAI // A man threatened to show a woman’s family a video he claimed was of her having sex unless she agreed to meet with him, Dubai Criminal Court was told. The 35-year-old Syrian told judges he found the video of the 25-year-old woman, also Syrian, online by accident. “We were in a relationship and planning to get married then I came across this recording of her […]

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