Bloomberg Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s ruling coalition retained its two-thirds parliamentary majority in Sunday’s general election, unofficial results showed, bolstering his chances at becoming Japan’s longest-serving leader. Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party and coalition partner Komeito won at least 310 of the 465 up for grabs, according to results shown on public broadcaster NHK. Opposition parties split the rest, with the ...

WASHINGTON / Reuters US President Donald Trump hailed the defeat of IS figh-ters in their self-proclaimed capital of Raqqa as “a crit- ical breakthrough” in a worldwide campaign against the militants. The Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) had formally announced Raqqa’s liberation from IS after four months of battles and said the city would be part of a decentralized federal ...

MOSCOW / Reuters Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and his Iraqi counterpart Ibrahim al-Jaafari will meet in Moscow on October 23 to discuss the situation in the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region, Russia’s foreign ministry said in a statement. Moscow is for constructive dialogue between Baghdad and Kurdistan, the ministry added. During al-Jaafari’s visit to Moscow on Oct. 23-25, the minister will ...