Fresh, deadly clashes erupt in Iraq despite cleric’s call for calm
– Fresh clashes between Iraqi security forces and anti-government protesters broke out in Baghdad on Friday killing one person, despite a call for calm by the country’s top Shi’ite cleric, as authorities grapple with the country’s biggest crisis in yea…
Rockets land near Iraqi base hosting U.S. forces, no casualties: Iraqi military
A barrage of 17 rockets landed near a military base hosting U.S. forces in northern Iraq on Friday but caused no injuries or major material damage, an Iraqi military statement said.
U.S. condemns Syrian government air strikes on civilians in northwest Syria: State Department
The United States strongly condemns air strikes by the Syrian government forces backed by Russia targeting hospitals and civilian infrastructure in northwestern Syria, State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said on Friday.
Life in Communist East Germany was ‘almost comfortable’ at times, Merkel says
Life in the Communist-ruled German Democratic Republic (GDR) was simpler and sometimes could be “almost comfortable in a certain way”, Chancellor Angela Merkel, who grew up in the former East, told Sueddeutsche Zeitung.
Chilean doctors hit the streets amid violent protests
Pushing rickety grocery carts as improvised hospital beds, more than 100 Chilean doctors and nurses hit the streets shortly after riots broke out in Chile weeks ago, diving into the fray amid clouds of tear gas and volleys of rubber bullets behind jus…
In Ukraine victory, top U.N. court rejects Moscow’s bid to block case
In a legal victory for Ukraine, the United Nations’ top court for disputes between states said on Friday it would hear a lawsuit filed by Ukraine against Russia for allegedly supporting pro-Russian separatists, rejecting Moscow’s call for the case to b…
Kremlin: no official reply to invitation for Trump to visit Moscow
Moscow has not received an official response from Washington to its invitation for U.S. President Donald Trump to visit Russia for a military parade event next year, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday, the RIA news agency reported.
French ambassador in Bosnia summoned over Macron’s ‘time bomb’ remark
Bosnia’s presidency summoned the French ambassador on Friday to protest over President Emmanuel Macron’s comment that the country is a “time bomb” due to returning Islamist fighters.
Lebanese banks face threats, Hariri said to want neutral government
Lebanese bank staff are facing abuse from customers angered by restrictions on access to their cash, the employees’ union said on Friday, reflecting intensifying pressures in an economy gripped by its deepest crisis since the 1975-90 civil war.
Macron’s blunt NATO diagnosis was risky but necessary, French officials say
Emmanuel Macron’s blunt diagnosis that NATO is “brain dead” has upset other Europeans, but that’s a risk the French president is prepared to take if it stops them turning a blind eye to an ever more dangerous world, officials in Paris say.
