Rouhani expands Iran’s missile program despite U.S. sanctions threat
DUBAI (Reuters) – President Hassan Rouhani ordered his defense minister on Thursday to expand Iran’s missile program, in defiance of a U.S. threat to impose sanctions over a ballistic missile test Iran carried out in October.
Media should give more space to good news, pope says after grim year
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – The media should give more space to positive, inspirational stories to counterbalance the preponderance of evil, violence and hate in the world, Pope Francis said on Thursday in his year-end message.
Hundreds of flights canceled as Istanbul hit by heavy snow
ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Hundreds of flights in and out of Turkey were canceled for Thursday and Friday at Istanbul’s two airports after the city was blanketed by heavy snow, which also forced the closure of schools and brought chaos to the roads.
French journalist forced to leave China after article on troubled Xinjiang
BEIJING (Reuters) – A French journalist has been forced to leave China after the government said it would not renew her press credentials for the new year in response to a critical report on Beijing’s policies in the troubled western region of Xinjiang…
Israel bars novel about Jewish-Arab love affair from school curriculum
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel’s Education Ministry has ruled against the inclusion of a novel about a romance between an Israeli woman and a Palestinian man in the Hebrew high school curriculum because it feared it could raise tensions among pupils, an …
Palestinian shot dead after ramming car into Israeli troops: army
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israeli troops shot and killed a Palestinian who rammed them with his car in the occupied West Bank on Thursday, the Israeli military said, as a wave of violence approached its fourth month.
Before Mosul, Iraqi army may face fight at the gates of Baghdad
BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Iraqi forces may face a big battle near Baghdad before they can try to retake the Islamic State stronghold of Mosul: Falluja, a long-time bastion of Sunni Muslim jihadists at the capital’s western gates.
Iran denies it fired rockets near U.S. warship in Gulf
DUBAI (Reuters) – Iran denied on Thursday that its Revolutionary Guards launched rockets near a U.S. aircraft carrier in the Gulf on Saturday and condemned U.S. plans for new sanctions over its ballistic missile program.
Germany to increase scrutiny of Syrian asylum applicants
BERLIN (Reuters) – Germany will start holding personal hearings for asylum seekers from Syria as of Friday, an Interior Ministry spokeswoman told Reuters on Thursday, reversing a policy of granting almost automatic refugee status for Syrians.
Syria ceasefire plan struggles to define a ‘terrorist’
WASHINGTON/UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – A U.N. plan to suspend Syria’s nearly five-year-old civil war calls for listing which militant groups may be fought despite an eventual ceasefire, one of the toughest issues vexing diplomats trying to end the confl…
