Moscow / AFP Russia’s defence ministry on Thursday dismissed as “counterproductive” a request from the United Nations to extend future pauses in fighting to allow aid into rebel-held eastern Aleppo as winter comes. The ministry said it received a request from the head of a UN-backed humanitarian taskforce for Syria, Jan Egeland, to make future breaks in fighting longer to ...

  Istanbul / AFP President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday hailed the founder of modern Turkey Mustafa Kemal Ataturk on the 78th anniversary of his death but added the country’s influence should go well beyond the borders of the state he created. Ataturk, who died on November 10, 1938, founded Turkey as a secular republic in 1923 out of the ...

  BEIJING /AFP A top Chinese police official was elected president of Interpol on Thursday, setting off alarm bells among rights advocates over abuses and a lack of transparency within China’s legal system, as well as the potential misuse of the police organization to attack Beijing’s political opponents. Vice Public Security Minister Meng Hongwei was named as the first Chinese ...

  Moscow/ AFP Russia’s security service said on Thursday it had detained several people in Crimea, accusing them of being saboteurs sent by Kiev to the Moscow-annexed peninsula to attack infrastructure targets. Russia’s FSB security service on Wednesday “detained members of a sabotage-terrorist group from the main intelligence directorate of the Ukrainian defence ministry,” it said in a statement. The ...

  At dawn on Tuesday in West Quoddy Head, Maine, America’s easternmost point, it was certain that by midnight in Cape Wrangell, Alaska, America’s westernmost fringe, there would be a loser who deserved to lose and a winner who did not deserve to win. The surprise is that Barack Obama must have immediately seen his legacy, a compound of stylistic ...

  Welcome, American liberals. Welcome to the special torment of discovering that you do not know your country. You thought, no doubt, you were exempt — immune from the shocks that liberals throughout the world have felt in recent years. And I can understand why: Because while you have suffered defeats at the hands of Reagan and the Bushes, and ...

  Donald Trump has made history as the first man with no government experience to reach the highest office in the land — and as the least popular and most divisive candidate ever to do so. The burden is now on him to leave a mean-spirited campaign behind and demonstrate that he can bring people together to move the country ...

  Climate diplomacy is becoming a core element of global negotiations and business propositions around the world. With Donald Trump’s stunning victory, the role of climate diplomats has assumed more significance. Even as the US election sends shivers down the spine of many environmentalists, climate diplomats have got down to brass tacks in Marrakech to decide on the rulebook to ...

  Dubai / WAM His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, received on Thursday the visiting Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan and the delegation accompanying him, at his palace in Zabeel, Dubai. Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid wished Sargsyan a successful visit that would help serve the joint interests of the ...

Dubai / Emirates Business High-profile decision makers and influential leaders are set to converge in Dubai next week, from November 13-14 to explore the future of strategic sectors as the UAE hosts the inaugural Annual Meeting of the Global Future Councils, (AMGFC) the world’s largest future think tank. The UAE’ participants include influential leaders from the public and private sectors, ...