Politics

Bloomberg German Social Democratic challenger Martin Schulz returned to his European Union roots in a speech to several thousand supporters in Frankfurt, accusing Angela Merkel of souring relations with EU allies and being unacceptably vague on plans for euro-area integration. Speaking on the German financial capital’s Roemerberg square in the shadow of the financial capital’s medieval city hall, the former ...

Bloomberg North Korea fired three short-range ballistic missiles on Saturday morning, a move that came after Kim Jong Un’s regime strongly criticized US-South Korea joint military drills. US Pacific Command said afternoon that two of the missiles flew 250 kilometers (155 miles), clarifying an earlier statement that an initial assessment had indicated they failed in flight. The other appeared to ...

TAL AFAR / Reuters Iraqi forces have dislodged IS from 70 percent of Tal Afar, a stronghold of the militants in northwestern Iraq, including its central citadel neighborhood, officials and military commanders said on Saturday. “Seventy percent of the city has been liberated…. God willing, the remaining part will be liberated soon,” Iraqi Foreign Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari said at a ...

UNITED NATIONS / Reuters US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley pressed the International Atomic Energy Agency to seek access to Iranian military bases to ensure that they are not concealing activities banned by the 2015 nuclear deal. “I have good confidence in the IAEA, but they are dealing with a country that has a clear history of lying ...

DUBAI / Reuters An air raid struck a building in Yemen’s capital, killing at least 12 people, six of them children, when an adjacent apartment block collapsed, residents said. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) denounced the loss of life as outrageous and put the death toll in the early morning attack on the Faj Attan area of ...

Bloomberg The US tightened its financial restrictions on North Korea, slapping sanctions on Chinese and Russian entities it accused of assisting Pyongyang’s development of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles. It’s also seeking millions of dollars it said moved through the US as part of the alleged scheme. Prosecutors in Washington DC, are seeking to recover $11 million from companies based ...

Bloomberg As world powers seek an endgame to Syria’s six-year war, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants a seat at the table. Israel says Iran and its Lebanese proxy Hezbollah are working to entrench themselves militarily in neighboring Syria, where they’re backing Syrian government troops, and it’s rattled that a recent truce deal brokered by Russia and the US doesn’t ...

UNITED NATIONS / Reuters The United States wants to know if the United Nations atomic watchdog plans to inspect Iranian military sites to verify Tehran’s compliance with a 2015 nuclear deal, the US ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, said. Haley will meet with International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) officials in Vienna for what she described as a fact-finding ...

Bloomberg When US President Donald Trump accused Pakistan of continuing to provide a “safe haven to agents of chaos, violence and terror” it evoked memories of general lawlessness across the country in the years after 9/11 that drove investors from South Asia’s second-largest economy. While militants the US identifies as terrorists find refuge in Pakistan, safety within the nation has ...

Bloomberg Angolans began voting in an election that will bring about the first leadership change in almost four decades for Africa’s second-biggest oil producer. “D-day has arrived,” Domingos Francisco said on Wednesday as he stood in line behind dozens of voters outside a blue tent that served as a polling station in the Rangel neighborhood in Luanda, the capital. “I ...