Politics

  SEOUL / AP US missile launchers and other equipment needed to set up a controversial missile defense system have arrived in South Korea, the U.S. and South Korean militaries said on Tuesday, a day after North Korea test-launched four ballistic missiles into the ocean near Japan. The plans to deploy the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense system, or THAAD, within ...

  BRUSSELS / AP Europe’s top court has ruled that European Union member states aren’t obliged to grant humanitarian visas to people who want to enter their territory to apply for asylum. The decision announced on Tuesday came after a Belgian court in October ordered the government to give humanitarian visas to a family in war-torn Syria. The European Court ...

  BRUSSELS / AP Former European Union President Herman van Rompuy says that Europe needs to become “much more ambitious” and that a common foreign policy for the 28-nation bloc is more necessary than ever. The EU is debating how to move forward as Britain prepares to leave and the bloc faces wider tensions. Van Rompuy said Tuesday that “even ...

  TORKHAM / AP Thousands of Afghans gathered at the Pakistani border to return home on Tuesday as Pakistan temporarily reopened two main crossings that had been closed last month after a wave of militant attacks. The Torkham and Chaman crossings were to remain open through on Wednesday for nationals from both countries with valid visas who want to return ...

  BEIRUT/ AP The top generals from Turkey, the United States and Russia met on Tuesday to discuss developments in Syria and Iraq as Syrian government forces made fresh gains fighting the IS group. The surprise meeting between Turkey’s Gen. Hulusi Akar, Marine Corps Gen. Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Gen. Valery Gerasimov, ...

  WASHINGTON / AP The senior Army officer tapped by President Donald Trump to be his national security adviser faces questions from senators during a rare closed-door meeting amid intense scrutiny of the White House for alleged Trump campaign contacts with Russian officials. Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster’s appearance before the Armed Services Committee, slated for Tuesday, is unusual because national ...

  MOGADISHU / AP United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres met Somalia’s new President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed in Mogadishu on Tuesday to start of what he calls an emergency visit to Somalia to highlight the country’s famine crisis. “People are dying. The world must act now to stop this,” the UN chief tweeted to announce his arrival in this Horn of ...

  KUALA LUMPUR / AP North Korea barred Malaysians from exiting its borders and Malaysia followed suit on Tuesday, turning ordinary citizens into pawns in the diplomatic battle surrounding the investigation into the bizarre death of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s half brother. The tit-for-tat directives come as relations between the two countries disintegrate over the poisoning of Kim ...

  SEOUL / AP North Korea on Monday fired four banned ballistic missiles that flew about 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) on average, with three of them landing in waters that Japan claims as its exclusive economic zone, South Korean and Japanese officials said. The test-launches appeared to be a reaction to huge US-South Korean military drills that those countries consider ...

  BEIRUT / AP US-backed Syrian fighters on Monday cut the main road between the northern Syrian city of Raqqa, which is controlled by the IS group, and the eastern city of Deir el-Zour, which is partially held by IS, as they press against the extremists’ territory in Syria. But despite the fresh blockade on the Raqqa-Deir el-Zour road, IS ...