Politics

  MILAN / AP Rescue workers were met with an eerie silence on Thursday when they reached a four-star spa hotel struck by an avalanche in a mountainous earthquake-stricken region of central Italy. At least 30 people were missing, including at least two children, authorities said. Guests at the three-story Hotel Rigopiano in the central Abruzzo region alerted emergency workers of …

  LUCKNOW / AP A truck loaded with sand collided with a school bus early Thursday, killing at least 24 young children in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, police said. At least two dozen other children were injured when the speeding truck collided head-on with the bus, said Javeed Ahmed, the state’s top police official. The children, between the …

  Bloomberg A day before US President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration, another pro-Russian president was sworn in far to the east, in NATO member Bulgaria, as questions arise over the future of the alliance amid rising animosity with its Cold-War adversary. Rumen Radev, a 53-year-old, US-trained general, took an oath of office on Thursday in Sofia after defeating the ruling party’s …

  NICOSIA / AP Greece’s president says an insistence by Turkey and Turkish Cypriots on keeping troops and military intervention rights on Cyprus even after the ethnically split island is reunified is “anachronistic” and unacceptable.” President Procopis Pavlopoulos says such positions are contrary to European Union norms and would create “dangerous precedents” if implemented. He said after talks with Cypriot President …

  PRISTINA / AP Kosovo’s foreign minister has written to his counterparts in the European Union, US and other countries denouncing “numerous acts of provocation and aggression” from Serbia, an official said on Thursday. The minister, Enver Hoxhaj, called on the EU, which facilitates Pristina-Belgrade talks to normalize ties, “to urge Serbia to remain committed to good neighborly relations,” according to …

  BEIJING / AP Sidestepping recent disputes over Taiwan and regional security, China said on Thursday that “important progress” has been made in its relationship with the US under President Barack Obama and the two countries should move forward as partners rather than competitors. Asked to sum up relations under Obama, who leaves office Friday, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying recalled …

  BAGHDAD / AP US-backed Iraqi government troops announced on Wednesday they were in “full control” of eastern Mosul after routing IS militants from that part of the northern city, three months since the major operation started. The achievement was a “big victory,” said Iraqi Army Lt. Gen. Talib Shaghati, who commands the counter-terrorism forces, describing the success of the Iraqi …

  GAO / AP A suicide bomber in an explosives-laden vehicle attacked a camp in northern Mali on Wednesday, killing at least 50 people and wounding dozens of soldiers and former fighters now trying to stabilize the region. While there was no immediate claim of responsibility, suspicion quickly fell on the extremist groups operating in the area which oppose the 2015 …

  DAVOS / AP Lawrence Summers, the former US Treasury Secretary, has warned that Donald Trump’s threats to firms using Mexico as a manufacturing base will be counterproductive and could lead to the loss of hundreds of thousands of American jobs. Summers told a panel at the World Economic Forum on Wednesday that the president-elect’s “rhetoric and announced policies” over Mexico …

  JERUSALEM / AP An Israeli Arab rammed his vehicle into a group of police officers on Wednesday, killing one of them before he was shot dead during clashes in southern Israel over a court-ordered operation to demolish illegally built homes, police said, while local residents accused the police of using excessive force against demonstrators. The conflicting accounts, and ensuing confrontations …