Aleppo, Syria / AFP The truce in Syria’s battleground city Aleppo expired on Thursday with no new last-minute extension, as a besieged town near the capital prepared to receive its first humanitarian aid in four years. World powers are to meet in Vienna next week to try to push faltering peace talks towards ending a five-year conflict that has killed …

  Badhdad / AP A twin suicide bombing hit a police station in Baghdad’s westernmost suburb on Thursday, killing at least five policemen a day after a wave of attacks by the IS group killed nearly a hundred people in the Iraqi capital. The IS-claimed bombings were the deadliest in Baghdad this year, coming at a time of turmoil and deadlock …

  Badhdad / AFP The IS group has released a video showing five alleged “spies” being shot dead in Iraq by young men from a crowd assembled for the execution. The 12-minute video released on social media on Wednesday mimics a participatory television show, in which members of the public are interviewed and invited to take part. Produced by the group’s …

  Kuwait City / AFP Yemen’s government and Iran-backed rebels have discussed the crucial issues of military withdrawals, the handover of weapons and the restoration of state institutions during peace talks, the UN said on Thursday. Negotiators on Wednesday also debated the logistical details of a release of prisoners and detainees announced a day earlier, UN envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed …

  Röszke, Hungary / AFP On the Serbian side of Hungary’s razor-topped border fence, the smell of burning rubbish hangs in the air, clothes hang on trees and the wait to get into the European Union goes on. “We go to those trees over there,” said Amir, 17, one of a seven-strong Afghan family including two children and an exhausted …

  Ankara, Turkey / AFP Turkey on Thursday recalled its ambassador to Bangladesh for consultations after strongly protesting the execution in the country of a top extremist leader, the state-run Anatolia news agency said. Motiur Rahman Nizami, leader of the Jamaat-E-Islami party, was hanged at a Dhaka jail late Tuesday for the massacre of intellectuals during the 1971 independence war with …

Can Americans work longer? Or, are we so broken down by our 60s that extending work life would be cruel? These questions stalk the debate over Social Security and Medicare. Critics of current policy, including me, have long urged that eligibility ages slowly rise to reflect longer life expectancy. Not so fast, counter others. Just because people live longer doesn’t …

  With suspension of Brazil’s first woman President Dilma Rousseff on Thursday, a curtain will be rolled down on 13 years of leftist rule over Latin America’s biggest nation. Throughout these years, Brazil’s economy improved but nosedived in the last two years. Rousseff was suspended by the Senate for up to 180 days pending an impeachment trial on charges of …

  Narayana Kocherlakota Have the U.S. Federal Reserve’s policies contributed to wealth inequality? Probably, but not in the way the central bank’s detractors think. Critics of the Fed’s efforts to support economic growth often argue that policies such as low interest rates and asset purchases have disproportionately benefited the rich. After all, they work in part by pushing up the …

  Jean-Michel Paul The dilapidated state of infrastructure in Belgium, home to the European Union’s main institutions, has become emblematic of a lack of investment that blights the whole continent and, according to the EU itself, is creating “lasting bottlenecks that undermine productivity growth.” This problem can be fixed, but probably not without reforming the bloc’s destructive restrictions on government …