BEIRUT / Reuters Most of an IS evacuation convoy stuck in east Syria has crossed out of government territory and is no longer the responsibility of the Syrian government or its ally Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shi’ite group said. A US-led coalition fighting IS has been using warplanes to prevent the convoy from entering territory held by the extremists in east ...

Bloomberg Kenya faces an extended period of political and economic uncertainty after the Supreme Court tossed out the results of last month’s presidential election in a stunning decision that’s unprecedented in Africa. The judges ordered a new vote to be held within 60 days, opening an intense campaign at risk of being marred by violence. The news sparked celebrations in ...

UNITED NATIONS / Reuters US President Donald Trump, a frequent critic of the United Nations, will seek to gather global support for reforming the world body when he hosts an event at UN headquarters in New York on September 18, a day before he formally addresses the 193-member organization. Countries will be invited to attend Trump’s function if they sign ...

Sooner or later, and the later the better, the president’s wandering attention will flit, however briefly, to the subject of trade. So, let us try to think about the problem as he seems to: Wily cosmopolitans beyond our borders are insinuating across our borders goods that Americans, perhaps misled by British economist David Ricardo, persist in purchasing. Exactly 200 years ...

With the presidency and both houses of Congress in their grasp, Republicans have a rare opportunity to make policy reforms. So far, nothing major has been done. On health care, the GOP failed to advance legislation. Now attention is turning to tax reform. Let’s hope the fact that taxes aren’t as much of a hot-button issue as health care will ...

In his speech about Afghanistan, President Donald Trump admitted that he once opposed the very strategy he was proposing. “My original instinct was to pull out,” he said. “I like following my instincts.” Credit where it is due: These may be the five truest words Trump has ever spoken. Harder to credit is his explanation for why he changed his ...

As usual, Donald Trump was overstating things when he bragged on Twitter that he has made the US nuclear arsenal “far stronger and more powerful than ever before.” The US does have the world’s largest collection of its most dangerous weapons, but the work of modernizing it predates and will outlast his presidency. The Pentagon is in the early stages ...

Mario Draghi’s appearance alongside Janet Yellen and Haruhiko Kuroda this week at Jackson Hole, Wyoming, would make a great photo for the history books. It may well be the trio’s last Fed retreat together. The guessing game on Fed leadership has received plenty of attention, and this month I wrote that Kuroda deserves a second term atop of the Bank ...

France’s new leader won stunning support this spring and squandered it with stunning speed soon after. But he has what Napoleon said a general needs most: luck. President Emmanuel Macron has not yet begun serious reform of France’s sclerotic economy, such as a rewrite of France’s overweight labor regulations, which is sure to prompt protests. But in the meantime he ...

The biggest problem with US insider trading laws is that the US has no insider trading law. It’s true. The nation’s seminal securities statute, the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, while broadly outlawing securities fraud, never even employs the phrase “insider trading.” And over the subsequent 83 years, while Congress has occasionally increased the penalty for insider trading, it has ...