Politics

ISTANBUL / Reuters Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats were enemies of Turkey and called on Turks in Germany to vote against major parties in next month’s elections. The comments, some of Erdogan’s harshest yet against Merkel, drew a furious response from Merkel, her government and some Turkish organisations in Germany, illustrating the widening divide ...

WASHINGTON / Reuters US Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis will travel to Jordan, Turkey and Ukraine later this month, the Pentagon said. Mattis will begin his trip in Jordan where he will meet with King Abdullah. Jordan is a member of the US-led coalition fighting IS in Syria and Iraq. The visit will be Mattis’ first to Jordan as defense ...

BEIRUT / Reuters An advisor to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has said the six-year war is nearly over as foreign states cut backing for rebels, and vowed the government would confront any “illegitimate” forces, whether Turkish or American. Bouthaina Shaaban said the fact that Syria was staging the Damascus International Fair for the first time in the war “sends a ...

TUNIS / Reuters Tunisia’s prime minister accepted the resignation of interim finance minister Fadhel Abdelkefi over a conflict of interest in a judicial case, but said he had asked him to stay on until a replacement is found. Abdelkefi is a key member of Prime Minister Youssef Chahed’s government, which is under pressure to carry out contentious economic reforms demanded ...

Bloomberg A day after belatedly faulting white supremacists for deadly clashes in Virginia, President Donald Trump returned to his controversial position that there was “blame on both sides” for the weekend violence — remarks that caught his own aides off-guard. “You had a group on one side that was bad, and you had a group on the other side that ...

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 ...