Politics

  BRUSSELS / AP Germany has signed a series of agreements with its NATO partners to jointly buy transport aircraft and submarines and develop new weapons. Details of the agreements seen by The Associated Press Thursday show Germany aims to buy eight Airbus A330 transport planes along with the Netherlands and Luxembourg if Norway and Belgium also sign up. NATO ...

  NICOSIA / AP The leader of ethnically divided Cyprus’ breakaway Turkish Cypriots has walked out of a meeting with the Greek Cypriot president amid ongoing reunification talks. It’s unclear why Mustafa Akinci left Thursday’s meeting with Nicos Anastasiades and what this means to the months-long peace process. Tensions have been high this week following strong Turkish Cypriot protests against ...

  YANGON / AP Myanmar’s national security adviser says the military has ended its four-month counterinsurgency operation in troubled Rakhine state, where it had been accused of rape, torture and other abuses against Muslim Rohingya minority residents. A statement issued on Thursday by the office of State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi quoted newly appointed national security adviser Thaung Tan ...

  WASHINGTON / AP David Friedman, the firebrand attorney President Donald Trump picked to be his ambassador to Israel, faces a rocky confirmation hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee after Trump signaled a dramatic shift in strategy for pursuing peace in the Middle East. Friedman’s hearing, scheduled for Thursday, already promised to be contentious. The son of an Orthodox ...

  KUALA LUMPUR / AP Malaysian authorities on Thursday announced the second and third arrests in the death of the North Korean leader’s half brother, whose apparent assassination this week unleashed tales of spectacular intrigue: a pair of women assailants, a broad-daylight killing and a dictator-sibling out for blood. But investigators were still piecing together details of the case, which ...

  MOGADISHU / AP The Somalia-based extremist group al-Shabab claimed responsibility on Thursday for a mortar attack outside the presidential palace during a handover ceremony for the country’s new leader, a sign of the enormous security challenges he faces in trying to develop this long-chaotic country. The blasts were heard during the ceremony for President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo. The SITE ...

  PARIS / AP France’s presidential race this year is upending every political assumption that has governed the country for decades. And now Emmanuel Macron, a 39-year-old former economy minister who is running an independent, centrist campaign, has a real chance to become France’s next president in the country’s two-round April-May vote. Among the startling events: an incumbent president is ...

  BRUSSELS / AP US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis on Wednesday made clear that the United States was committed to NATO while also reinforcing the Trump administration’s demand that allies pay their fair share. Speaking at his first NATO defense minister’s meeting, Mattis called the alliance “a fundamental bedrock for the United States and for all the trans-Atlantic community.” That ...

  PESHAWAR / AP A Taliban suicide bombing targeted the administrative headquarters of a tribal region in northwestern Pakistan on Wednesday, killing three policemen and two passers-by, according to officials. The explosion went off at the main gate of the tribal headquarters in Ghalanai in the Mohmand tribal region, just as the workday was about to start, said Hameedullah Khan, ...

  NEW DELHI / AP India’s space agency said it successfully launched more than 100 foreign nano satellites into orbit Wednesday aboard a single rocket. The Indian Space Research Organization said the nano satellites — those weighing less than 10 kilograms (22 pounds) — were sent into orbit from southern India. It said the launching of the 104 satellites was ...