Palestinians ask world to punish Israel for new settlement law

  JERUSALEM / AP A Palestinian Cabinet minister on Tuesday called on the international community to punish Israel for a contentious new law, just hours after the Israeli parliament adopted the bill to retroactively legalize thousands of West Bank settlement homes built unlawfully on private Palestinian land. The explosive law, approved by lawmakers late on Monday, is the latest in ...

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Trump says media ‘doesn’t want to report’ extremist attacks

  MACDILL AIR FORCE BASE / AP President Donald Trump is accusing the media of deliberately minimizing coverage of the threat posed by the IS group, saying news outlets “have their reasons” for not reporting what he described as a “genocide” underway at the hands of the group. The president did not immediately offer evidence to support his claim, made ...

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Chinese judge: Trump is an enemy ‘of the rule of law’

  BEIJING / AP A judge in China’s top court has labeled Donald Trump an enemy “of the rule of law” over his insults directed at a US judge who temporarily blocked the president’s travel ban, saying Trump had set a poor example as head of the world’s leading democracy. Supreme People’s Court Judge He Fan’s blog post came after ...

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NATO presence in Baltics sends clear signal: Lithuania

  VILNIUS / AP Lithuania’s president says that large numbers of NATO forces being stationed in the Baltics sends a clear signal that the alliance stands “strong and united.” Dalia Grybauskaite says that Lithuania has “never before” seen “forces of such size and integrity” deployed in one of NATO’s easternmost countries close to key Russian exclave Kaliningrad. Grybauskaite spoke Tuesday ...

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Activists say airstrikes kill 15 in rebel-held city

  BEIRUT / AP Airstrikes on a rebel-held city in Syria early Tuesday killed at least 15 people, wounded dozens more and demolished several buildings, in one of the deadliest attacks since a cease-fire went into effect last year, Syrian activists and medics said. The airstrikes hit the city of Idlib, the capital of a northwestern province of the same ...

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Merkel in euroskeptic Poland in struggle to save EU

  WARSAW / AP German Chancellor Angela Merkel visits Warsaw on Tuesday for talks with Poland’s top leaders, taking efforts to save the European Union to a country that is keen to keep as much national power as possible and fears being marginalized in a “two-speed Europe.” Her trip is “one of the most important visits in Polish-German relations since ...

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Romanian government seeks loophole on corruption

  BUCHAREST / AP Romania’s government is on a high-risk mission: devise a legal and politically acceptable way to remove penalties for some types of official corruption. First, the government tried to effect the change by imposing an emergency decree without public debate. The move backfired badly, sparking massive demonstrations in the capital of Bucharest and other major cities that ...

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China’s central bank suspends reverse repos to drain liquidity

  Bloomberg China’s central bank refrained from offering reverse-repurchase agreements for the third day in a row, which resulted in a net withdrawal of funds from the financial system. The People’s Bank of China didn’t carry out the open-market operation because it aims to keep liquidity basically stable, and current levels are relatively high, according to a statement posted on ...

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Indian lender shuns firms to become top Asian bank stock

  Bloomberg Indian Bank, a century-old state-owned lender based in the country’s south, has emerged as Asia’s top-performing bank stock in the past year, driven by a focus on consumer loans that are less likely to sour than corporate advances. The Chennai-based firm is aiming to boost retail lending, which includes mortgages and loans underpinned by gold as collateral, to ...

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RBNZ governor to step down in September

  Bloomberg New Zealand central bank (RNBZ) governor Graeme Wheeler will step down when his term ends in September and hand the reins to a deputy until a permanent successor is appointed in 2018. Deputy Governor Grant Spencer will helm the Reserve Bank for six months after Wheeler departs on Sept. 26, Finance Minister Steven Joyce said on Tuesday in Wellington, ...

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