BAGHDAD / Reuters Tension flared on Saturday in the ethnically mixed Iraqi town of Tuz Khurmatu after a clash between Kurdish and Shi’ite Turkmen political parties divided over the independence of the Kurdistan region, security sources said on Saturday. A dozen Kurdish families were displaced from the predominantly Turkmen district of Askari to Kurdish neighbourhoods of the town, after the ...

Bloomberg A key critic of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro says he may be barred from travelling to Russia, where he’ll seek to build relations with one of the ailing regime’s few foreign backers. National Assembly President Julio Borges plans to leave Venezuela over the weekend to attend an international parliamentary forum in St. Petersburg and meet with Russian lawmakers. “In ...

Bloomberg Secessionist allies piled pressure on Catalan President Carles Puigdemont to formally declare independence from Spain as a deadline looms for him to clarify his stance or face being stripped of his powers by the central government in Madrid. CUP, a radical party that’s part of Puigdemont’s pro-independence coalition in the Catalan parliament, published a letter saying that the only ...