Politics

Bloomberg Martin Schulz, the former head of the European Parliament who is leading Germany’s Social Democratic Party into next month’s election, said that the UK government risks further complicating Brexit negotiations by producing a series of position papers for the talks. Schulz, who’s trailing in his race to unseat Chancellor Angela Merkel, also signaled he wants to keep her handling ...

TIKRIT / Agencies Seven Iraqi soldiers were killed on Wednesday when a suicide attacker tried to infiltrate a security headquarters near the northern city of Baiji where IS is entrenched in nearby mountain areas, security sources said. Around five assailants attacked the compound where police and army troops are based. One blew up his explosives vest at the entrance while ...

Bloomberg In a Nairobi slum named Lucky Summer, residents tell of being terrorized by men with dreadlocks wearing official Kenyan paramilitary uniforms who stalk the streets at night carrying machetes, clubs and guns. The troublemakers belong to the Mungiki, a criminal gang that played a key role in ethnic fighting that followed a contested 2007 vote and claimed at least ...

AMMAN / Reuters Jordan held local elections on Tuesday in a move officials say will help devolve some powers to larger cities and underdeveloped rural regions but which critics say falls short of promised wider political reform. The countrywide municipal vote – the first since 2013 – is a stated bid by the government to bring wider grassroots democracy that ...

ABOARD THE GOLFO AZZURRO / Reuters The Libyan coastguard intercepted a humanitarian rescue ship in the Mediterranean on Tuesday, ordering it to sail to Tripoli or risk being targeted, a Reuters photographer aboard said. It was the latest in a series of incidents in which non-governmental organisations (NGOs), operating on the edge of Libyan waters to rescue migrants trying to ...

ANKARA / Reuters Turkey has asked Germany to extradite a theology lecturer suspected of playing a major role in last year’s failed coup, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Wednesday. Turkey sent a diplomatic note requesting the extradition of Adil Oksuz, who the government says was the “imam” of air force personnel who last year bombed parliament as part of ...

Bloomberg South Korean President Moon Jae-in has signaled his country will no longer stay quiet as tensions escalate between the US and North Korea. In a forceful speech on Tuesday, Moon asserted the right to veto any military action against Kim Jong Un’s regime, saying that decision should be made by “ourselves and not by anyone else.” He vowed to ...

ERBIL / Reuters Iraqi forces are carrying out air strikes on Tal Afar, a town held by IS west of Mosul, in preparation for a ground assault, an Iraqi military spokesman said on Tuesday. IS’s self-proclaimed caliphate effectively collapsed last month, when US-backed Iraqi forces completed the recapture of Mosul, the militants’ capital in northern Iraq, after a nine-month campaign. ...

DUBAI / Reuters Iran could abandon its nuclear agreement with world powers “within hours” if the United States imposes any more new sanctions, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on Tuesday. “If America wants to go back to the experience (of imposing sanctions), Iran would certainly return in a short time — not a week or a month but within hours ...

Bloomberg President Donald Trump called out white supremacists for their role in the deadly violence over the weekend in Virginia as the administration sought to counter a backlash against his initial failure to directly hold hate groups accountable. “Racism is evil and those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including the KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and ...