Politics

  NICOSIA / AP European Union member states have rejected Turkey’s demand that its citizens be granted the freedom to relocate and transfer money, services and goods to EU member Cyprus under any deal reunifying the ethnically divided island, the Cypriot president said on Saturday. Nicos Anastasiades said all EU leaders consider it a “bad precedent” for Cyprus or any ...

  BEIRUT / AP Twin blasts on Saturday near holy shrines frequented by Shiites in the Syrian capital Damascus killed at least 40 people, most of them Iraqis, according to Syrian and Iraqi officials. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attacks. IS militants have carried out similar attacks before against Shiite shrines in the Syrian capital and ...

  ANKARA / AP The United States risks major damage to its relationship with NATO ally Turkey if the US includes Kurdish forces in the fight to retake Raqqa, the IS group’s de facto capital, Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said on Thursday. Turkey and the US are locked in a heated dispute about US plans to liberate Raqqa, with ...

  BEIRUT / AP At least 20 civilians, including some children, were killed in suspected US-coalition airstrikes on a village east of the IS group’s de-facto capital in Syria, activists reported on Thursday. The report comes as the militants come under mounting pressure by rival US-backed and Russian-backed forces working to seize the capital, Raqqa. Also on Thursday, engineers restored two ...

  BUCHAREST / AFP Moldova has accused Russia’s intelligence service of intimidating politicians and other officials, amid an investigation in the former Soviet republic into alleged money laundering by Russian officials. Moldova’s Parliament said on Thursday that Russia intelligence agents had “abusively stopped…. interrogated, and treated in a humiliating manner” 25 Moldovan lawmakers, intelligence officials, and pro-European politicians in recent ...

  MADRID / AP Thousands of high school and university students have marched in cities across Spain to urge the government to invest more in education and to repeal a controversial education bill. The protests on Thursday were called by the State Platform in Defense of Public Education, which includes associations of parents and students, as well as teachers’ unions. In ...

  HONOLULU / AP Hawaii has become the first state to file a lawsuit against President Donald Trump’s revised travel ban, saying the order will harm its Muslim population, tourism and foreign students. Attorneys for the state filed the lawsuit against the US government on Wednesday in federal court in Honolulu. The state had previously sued over Trump’s initial travel ban, ...

  SARAJEVO / AFP The United Nations’ top court has dismissed a request by Bosnia to reconsider its 2007 ruling that cleared Serbia of blame for genocide during the 1992-95 Bosnian war. The International Court of Justice informed Bosnia’s tripartite presidency on Thursday that it could not allow the appeal of its ruling because the request to do so was ...

  MOSCOW / AFP The Kremlin on Thursday rejected US claims of Russian violations of a landmark nuclear arms treaty, saying it has respected the pact and will continue to do so. The controversy over the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty adds another thorn in the side for US President Donald Trump’s declared goal of improving ties with Moscow, coming at ...

  MOSCOW / AFP Russian President Vladimir Putin hosted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday for talks focusing on the situation in Syria and Israeli concerns about the role of Iran and its proxies there. Greeting Netanyahu at the start of their Kremlin negotiations, Putin emphasized a high level of trust between them. Netanyahu’s visit to Moscow follows his talks ...