Politics

Baghdad / AFP Sunni Arab tribesmen battled militants of the IS group in their Fallujah stronghold for a second day on Saturday in a major blow to the extremists in Iraq, officials said. Fallujah is one of two Iraqi cities still controlled by IS, but residents—said to number in the tens of thousands—vastly outnumber the estimated 300 to 400 extremists ...

United Nations / AP The head of an international group monitoring South Sudan’s peace process said he will propose security arrangements to spur the return of rebel leader Riek Machar as vice president, a critical step to launching a national unity government that must urgently tackle escalating violence and the country’s “humanitarian catastrophe.” Festus Mogae told the UN Security Council ...

kiev / AFP Ukrainians on Saturday sombrely marked the second anniversary of the bloody revolution that ousted Russian-backed president Viktor Yanukovych, as a fresh political crisis left many disillusioned with the current leadership. President Petro Poroshenko and his wife came early in the morning to light icon lamps at a memorial cross for the more than 100 people killed in ...

Jerusalem / AFP The sniper barrel juts out of the ancient wall above Jerusalem’s Damascus Gate, pointing down towards a young Palestinian being searched by Israeli policemen. A key tourist site and one of the entrances to the Old City, the massive white stone gate has become a backdrop for the violence between Israel and Palestinians that erupted almost five ...

Bloomberg The strain is starting to tell on Angela Merkel. Left to climb the solitary path she’s chosen during Europe’s refugee crisis, the German chancellor mocked fellow European leaders this week for refusing to come to her aid by stalling a resettlement plan. At a private meal last month with German newspaper executives critical of her stance, she proudly served ...

Bloomberg The largest party in Brazil’s lower house of Congress re-elected a pro-government leader, strengthening President Dilma Rousseff’s hand in fending off impeachment. In a 37 to 30 vote, deputies of the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party, or PMDB, re-elected Congressman Leonardo Picciani, who has spoken out against efforts to remove Rousseff from office on charges she broke the budget law. ...

Bloomberg Turkey’s leaders vowed to retaliate for a bombing of a military bus that killed at least 28 people, raising the risk that the country will step up its intervention in the war in Syria to strike groups suspected in the attack. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the blast in the capital, Ankara, which killed both civilians ...

Bloomberg Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni is expected to extend his 30-year rule in an election that’s being held on Thursday amid tight security and fears of violence. Former guerrilla commander Museveni is competing with seven other candidates to run a landlocked country that’s Africa’s biggest coffee exporter, is planning oil production in two years and may build a pipeline for ...

Washington / Bloomberg President Barack Obama will pay a historic visit to Cuba in the coming weeks, senior Obama administration officials said, becoming the first president to set foot on the island in nearly seven decades. The brief visit in mid-March will mark a watershed moment for relations between the US and Cuba, a communist nation estranged from the US ...

Bloomberg Kenya’s army said it killed the head of Al Shabaab’s intelligence wing and 10 other leaders in a strike on one of the extremist-militant group’s training camps in southern Somalia. Mahad Karate, who was also a deputy commander of Al Shabaab, died in a “major strike” by the Kenya Defence Forces(KDF) on Feb. 8 at Nadaris, about 300 kilometers ...