Politics

  Bloomberg European Union leaders gathering in Rome on Saturday sought to reinforce the unity of the remaining member states, flagging a common defense as a priority, just four days before Britain officially sends notice it’s leaving. UK Prime Minister Theresa May’s absence from the celebratory summit, marking 60 years since the Treaty of Rome created the bedrock for the ...

  BEIRUT / AP Warplanes struck rebel-held parts of Syria on Saturday killing and wounding scores of people amid clashes on multiple fronts between government forces and insurgent groups in some of the worst violence to hit the country in weeks, opposition activists said on Saturday. The airstrikes, of which some activists said included Russian air raids, concentrated on the ...

  Bloomberg President Donald Trump should discuss Russian attempts to influence the outcome of the US election in November in an effort to fill intelligence gaps, said Senator John McCain. “I would very much like to see the president address this issue including the issue we continue to wrestle with that is the Russian interference in the last election,” McCain ...

  WASHINGTON / AP US Treasury Department agents have recently obtained information about offshore financial transactions involving President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, as part of a federal anti-corruption probe into his work in Eastern Europe, The Associated Press has learned. Information about Manafort’s transactions was turned over earlier this year to US agents working in the Treasury ...

  KIEV / AP A former Russian lawmaker Denis Voronenkov was shot and killed in Kiev on Thursday in what the Ukrainian president described as an “act of state terrorism” by Russia, an accusation that has been quickly rejected by the Kremlin. President Petro Poroshenko said Voronenkov’s killing “clearly shows the handwriting of Russian special services shown repeatedly in various ...

  CAIRO / AP Extremists killed 10 Egyptian soldiers in fighting in a central part of the restive Sinai Peninsula during an army raid on a militant hideout early Thursday, the military said, a toll that underscored its continuing challenges to rein in insurgents in the area. Army spokesman Tamer el-Rifai said troops killed 15 extremists and took seven prisoners ...

  KABUL / AP The Taliban captured a key district center in Afghanistan’s southern Helmand province on Thursday while in the country’s north, an officer turned his rifle on sleeping colleagues, killing nine policemen, officials said. The fall of Sangin district, once considered the deadliest battlefield for British and US troops in Afghanistan, comes amid the insurgents’ year-long push to ...

  LONDON / AP A vehicle mowed down pedestrians on London’s Westminster Bridge, killing at least one woman and leaving others with injuries described as catastrophic. Around the same time on Wednesday, a knife-wielding attacker stabbed a police officer and was shot on the grounds outside Britain’s Parliament, sending the compound into lockdown. Authorities said they were treating the attacks ...

  BEIRUT / AP Syrian activists said on Wednesday that dozens of people were killed or missing after an airstrike the day before leveled a school near the IS-held city of Raqqa where displaced families had sought refuge. The activist-run group Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently said some 50 families had been sheltering at the school in the northern Syrian ...

  BEIJING / AP China is not building an environmental monitoring station on a disputed South China Sea shoal, the foreign ministry said Wednesday, apparently denying remarks made by a local official last week that prompted a request for clarification from rival claimant the Philippines. Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said reports about the facility on Scarborough Shoal had been checked ...