BEIRUT / Reuters Syrian government forces advanced against IS on Tuesday to reach troops surrounded for years by the extremists in a government-held enclave in the eastern city of Deir al-Zor, pro-Damascus media outlets and a monitoring group reported. “The Syrian army and its allies break the siege on Deir al-Zor,” a military media unit run by Syria’s ally Hezbollah ...

Bloomberg US President Donald Trump agreed to support billions of dollars in new weapons sales to South Korea after North Korea’s largest nuclear test, while his ambassador to the United Nations said the US would seek the strongest possible sanctions against Kim Jong Un’s regime. Ambassador Nikki Haley said at a meeting of the UN Security Council that Kim was ...

Bloomberg A top adviser to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan slammed “populist” exchanges during Germany’s election campaign after Chancellor Angela Merkel said she’ll urge European Union leaders to decide whether to suspend or end Turkey’s accession to the bloc. The Turkish lira and bonds dropped on Tuesday as Merkel told the lower house of parliament in Berlin that she’ll bring ...

Bloomberg President Tsai Ing-wen named a popular southern Taiwan mayor to lead her government, as she seeks to rebuild support ahead of next year’s local elections. Tsai on Tuesday appointed Tainan Mayor William Lai to take over as premier, a move that had been widely expected after Lin Chuan resignation’s a day earlier. Lai will be tasked with reorganizing the ...

China may be an even bigger economic deal than we thought. Almost everyone knows that, in the past three decades, China has gone from a huge and poor nation to the world’s biggest exporter and second-largest economy. Now, in a new report, two economists claim that China’s emergence explains a lot more. Specifically, they say it fostered three major global ...

Two years ago, Alan Kurdi, the three-year-old Syrian boy photographed lying face down on a beach near the Turkish resort of Bodrum, stirred the conscience of many Europeans. That moment of guilt and shame already seems past. We’ve barely noticed that since Kurdi’s death at least 8,500 people, many of them unescorted children, have died or disappeared while attempting to ...

With its decision to nullify the results of last month’s presidential election, Kenya’s top court has invalidated the votes of some 15 million citizens. It has also struck a blow for democracy that will reverberate across Africa. Now comes the hard part: Holding new elections within 60 days that are untainted by the irregularities, intimidation and violence that have scarred ...

President Donald Trump is not generally the reticent type. When it comes to the fate of almost 800,000 young immigrants known as Dreamers, however, he has been unusually quiet. Trump is under pressure from conservative state officials who are threatening to sue the federal government next week if he doesn’t end a 2012 program that enables so-called Dreamers — young ...

When India’s prime minister announced last November that 86% of India’s currency would be worthless in hours, he presented the decree as a well-thought-out measure to attack cash “hoarded by anti-national and anti-social elements”. We were led to believe that honest taxpayers would line up to return their high-value currency notes, but these “anti-national and anti-social elements” would be unable ...

Just when the world thought China was retreating — pushing acquisitive private companies to relinquish their global shopping sprees — it looks like Beijing might be getting out its check book again. China Civil Engineering Construction Corp. will build a $5.8 billion hydroelectric power station in eastern Nigeria, with 85 percent of the funding to come from Beijing’s Export-Import Bank, ...