By Angus McDowall and Maria Tsvetkova | BEIRUT/MOSCOW BEIRUT/MOSCOW As President Bashar al-Assad’s army closed in on the last rebel enclave in Aleppo on Tuesday, Russia, Iran and Turkey said they were ready to help broker a Syrian peace deal. The Syrian army used loudspeakers to broadcast warnings to insurgents that it was poised to enter their rapidly diminishing area during the day and told them to […]
Germany was braced for a possible manhunt on Tuesday after doubts emerged as to whether the man arrested after an attack on a Christmas market in Berlin was indeed the perpetrator. Thomas de Maizière, Germany’s interior minister, said he was in “no doubt” that the attack, in which a truck was driven at speed into a crowded market in the heart of the German capital, was an […]
By Maria Tsvetkova and Peter Hobson | MOSCOW MOSCOW Russia, Iran and Turkey said they were ready to help broker a Syrian peace deal after the three countries held talks in Moscow on Tuesday and adopted a declaration which set out the principles any agreement should adhere to. The countries made the announcement after Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov hosted talks with his Iranian and Turkish counterparts […]
Good morning. Here’s our morning roundup of all the media news you need to know. Want to get this briefing in your inbox every morning? Subscribe here. It could be called the “NBC Very, Very Late Nightly News With Brian Williams.” Instead, it’s “The 11th Hour With Brian Williams” on MSNBC — a new show starring an old face who’s honorably doing what he does well in […]
Photo Andrey G. Karlov, left, with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia at Ataturk airport in Turkey in October. Credit Osman Orsal/Reuters Russia’s ambassador to Turkey, Andrey G. Karlov, was killed by a gunman on Monday in Ankara, the capital. Turkish officials said the killer had been a police officer who, after shooting, shouted: “Don’t forget Aleppo! Don’t forget Syria!” Russia’s Foreign Ministry called the assassination a […]
ABU DHABI // Iran’s nuclear deal and the republic’s support for militias across the region are some of the major threats GCC countries face, the head of an Abu Dhabi think-tank told the British Parliament. Dr Ahmed Al Hamli told the International Relations Committee this threat had led to a regional shift of power from legitimate states to illegitimate terrorist groups, weakening the region for the Islamic […]
By Umit Bektas and Orhan Coskun | ANKARA ANKARA Turkish police have detained six people over the killing of the Russian ambassador, state media said, who was shot in the back as he gave a speech in Ankara on Monday by an off-duty police officer shouting “Don’t forget Aleppo” and “Allahu Akbar”. The state-run Anadolu agency said on Tuesday the attacker’s mother, father, sister and two other […]
Good morning. Here’s our morning roundup of all the media news you need to know. Want to get this briefing in your inbox every morning? Subscribe here. Imagine if Snopes, PolitiFact and The Associated Press fact-checked our holiday cards and letters — or many of our daily declarations — for the truth. Facebook, of course, just announced it would team with PolitiFact, FactCheck.org, the Associated Press, ABC […]
Video Bana al-Abed Escapes Aleppo Bana al-Abed, a 7-year-old Syrian girl whose Twitter account made her a face of the suffering in Syria, has been evacuated from eastern Aleppo along with thousands of other displaced citizens. By MEGAN SPECIA and YARA BISHARA on Publish Date December 19, 2016. Photo by Twitter/AlabedBana. Watch in Times Video » Bana al-Abed, a 7-year-old Syrian girl who became the face of […]
Photo Jordanian security forces in the town of Karak on Monday. Credit Ben Curtis/Associated Press KARAK, Jordan — Gunmen involved in a rare terrorist attack in Jordan on Sunday had a large cache of weapons, explosives and suicide vests in the apartment where they had been living, the country’s interior minister said on Monday. The discovery of the cache suggested that the men were preparing for multiple […]
By Michelle Nichols | UNITED NATIONS UNITED NATIONS African states narrowly failed on Monday for a second time to halt the work of the first U.N. independent investigator appointed to help protect gay and transgender people worldwide from violence and discrimination. The attempt was voted down in the U.N. General Assembly 84 to 77 with 16 abstentions, a month after African states made a similar unsuccessful move […]
ANKARA The Russian ambassador to Ankara was shot dead in an attack at an art gallery in the Turkish capital on Monday by a gunman shouting “Don’t forget Aleppo”. A Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman confirmed the death of envoy Andrei Karlov, which marked one of the most serious spillovers of the Syria conflict into Turkey. Russia is a close ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and its […]
Convoys of evacuees travelled from a rebel-held area of Aleppo and from two Shi’ite villages besieged by insurgents on Monday after a days-long stand-off. Dozens of buses carrying thousands of people from Aleppo’s tiny rebel zone reached insurgent areas of countryside to the west of the city, according to a United Nations official and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring group. At the same time, […]
By Michelle Nichols | UNITED NATIONS UNITED NATIONS The United Nations Security Council on Monday unanimously called for U.N. officials and others to observe the evacuation of people from the last rebel-held enclave in Aleppo and monitor the safety of civilians who remain in the Syrian city. The 15-member council overcame long-held divisions – that have pitted Syrian ally Russia and China against western powers over the […]
VIENNA Austria’s far-right Freedom Party (FPO) offered on Monday to act as a go-between for U.S. President-elect Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin after signing a cooperation agreement with Putin’s party. Party leader Heinz-Christian Strache and the FPO’s recently defeated presidential candidate Norbert Hofer attended the signing ceremony in Moscow, as did officials of Putin’s United Russia party including Pyotr Tolstoy, a deputy chairman of the […]
By Angus McDowall and Ellen Francis | BEIRUT BEIRUT Thousands were evacuated from the last rebel-held enclave of the city of Aleppo on Monday after a deal was reached to allow people to leave two besieged pro-government villages in nearby Idlib province. Convoys of buses from eastern Aleppo reached rebel-held areas of countryside to the west of the city in cold winter weather, according to a U.N. […]
Photo Buses evacuated residents from Fua and Kfarya, Shiite villages near the Syrian city of Aleppo, on Monday. Credit Agence France-Presse — Getty Images BEIRUT, Lebanon — After days of delays and sporadic violence, the evacuation of civilians and fighters from besieged communities in Syria has resumed, with convoys taking people out of Aleppo and two nearby Shiite villages, Syrian state television and opposition conflict monitors reported […]
GENEVA Nearly 50 children who were trapped in an orphanage in the rebel-held Syrian enclave of east Aleppo were evacuated on Monday, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said. “This morning, all 47 children trapped in an orphanage in east Aleppo were evacuated to safety, with some in critical condition from injuries and dehydration,” Geert Cappelaere, UNICEF regional director, said in a statement. UNICEF and other agencies […]
A senior Saudi cleric and a health ministry official said women should be allowed to work as paramedics and opticians, Saudi newspapers reported on Monday, part of a push to relax strict labour codes in the ultra-conservative kingdom. The government announced an economic reform plan in June that aims to increase the number of women as a proportion of the workforce to 28 percent from 23 percent […]
The deal would send United Nations monitors to observe the evacuation process after consultations with “interested parties,” which means that observers could in theory be turned down by soldiers and militias on the ground. Senior United Nations officials have repeatedly said that they have sought Syrian government permission to be present during the evacuation process, and that they have not received it. Continue reading the main story […]
Your daily guide to community and cultural activities across the Emirates for December 19, 2016, including performances, festivals, art exhibitions, film screenings, health and fitness events, talks, classes, workshops and family fun. newslide Abu Dhabi Film screenings Catch two film screenings as part of the Cinema Space series. The Patience Stone (pictured), a film in Dari (Afhgan Persion) with English subtitles, is about a young woman in […]
Senior American officials and top commanders in the Middle East say the brutal urban fight for Mosul is succeeding — however slowly — but is proving to be tougher than expected. These officials predict that the battle to oust the Islamic State from Iraq’s second-largest city could last two to four more months. Continue reading the main story Brett H. McGurk, President Obama’s envoy to the international […]
The evacuation of eastern Aleppo stalled again on Sunday after a convoy heading for two government-controlled towns came under attack by rebel forces. According to Syrian state television, the buses were en route to al-Fuaa and Kefraya to collect the sick and injured when they were attacked and torched by opposition fighters. A video posted online, purporting to be of the aftermath of the convoy attack, shows […]
By Stephen Kalin | ERBIL, Iraq ERBIL, Iraq Seven-year-old Anas lies in a hospital bed in the northern Iraqi city of Erbil, his little body wrapped in bandages following four surgeries to remove shrapnel that shredded his intestines. He is considered lucky for being alive. Two of his brothers did not survive the Islamic State mortar attack three weeks ago on their family’s home in Mosul. One […]
