Politics

  BEIRUT / AP Syrian TV said at least 39 people were killed on Saturday in an explosion that hit near buses carrying people evacuated from a besieged area of government loyalists. A war monitor put the death toll at 24 in the area controlled by opposition fighters. The explosion was caused by a car bomb, according to Syrian TV ...

  Bloomberg An Iraqi military officer says IS militants have launched a gas attack in a newly-liberated area in western Mosul. The officer with the anti-terrorism forces said on Saturday that the attack occurred the night before in the al-Abar neighborhood, when IS fired a rocked loaded with chlorine. He said seven soldiers suffered breathing problems and were treated in ...

  PYONGYANG / AP North Korea paraded its intercontinental ballistic missiles in a massive military display in central Pyongyang on Saturday, with ruler Kim Jong Un looking on with delight as his nation flaunted its increasingly sophisticated military hardware amid rising regional tensions. Kim did not speak during the annual parade, which celebrates the 1912 birthday of his late grandfather ...

  Bloomberg US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov vented disagreements after hours of talks in Moscow while signaling that neither side is giving up on improving relations soured by Russian hacking and deepening differences over Syria. Tillerson’s first trip to Russia as the top US diplomat was so freighted with tension that the Kremlin ...

  BEIRUT / AP A misdirected airstrike by the US-led coalition earlier this week killed 18 allied fighters battling the IS group in northern Syria, the US military said on Thursday. US Central Command said coalition aircraft were given the wrong coordinates by their partner forces, the predominantly-Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces, for a strike intended to target IS militants south ...

  CAIRO / AP At least 97 African migrants are missing and believed drowned after their Europe-bound boat sank in the Mediterranean Sea on Thursday, the Libyan coast guard said. Spokesman Ayoub Gassim said 23 migrants were rescued around 6 miles (10 kilometers) off the Libyan coast after authorities received a distress call. Fifteen women and five children are among ...

  Bloomberg President Vladimir Putin began talks with US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson at the Kremlin after pushing back against demands that Russia abandon Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad over a chemical-weapons attack. Putin is meeting with Tillerson and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov at the Kremlin after the two top diplomats held talks on Wednesday in Moscow, presidential spokesman ...

  Bloomberg US President Donald Trump is finding little support among his Asian allies — both publicly and behind the scenes — as he weighs a military attack on North Korea after unilaterally firing missiles on Syria. Any attack on Kim Jong Un’s regime — even a limited strike on weapons facilities — risks catastrophic blowback on some of Asia’s ...

  WARSAW / AP Foreign ministers from Central and Eastern Europe met on Wednesday in Warsaw to discuss the future of the European Union’s ties with its eastern neighbors and prospects for the bloc’s enlargement. The meeting brought together ministers from the EU’s so-called Visegrad Group — Poland, Hungary, The Czech Republic and Slovakia — and six other nations aspiring ...

  MOSCOW / AP US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson arrived in Moscow on Tuesday with an ultimatum for Russia: Side with the US and likeminded countries on Syria, or embrace Iran, militant group Hezbollah and embattled Syrian leader Bashar Assad. It wasn’t clear what the punishment would be for a Russian government that has used its military might to ...