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by Dmitry ZAKS Agence France-Presse KIEV, Ukraine (AFP) – A top monitor for the conflict in Ukraine warned Thursday that a “massive upsurge in violence” has pushed fighting between Kiev’s forces and pro-Russian rebels to levels not seen in months. The statement by Alexander Hug of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) came a day after the body hailed progress toward a New Year’s truce agreement that must still be approved by […]
by Deborah Cole with Michelle Fitpatrick Agence France Presse BERLIN, Germany (AFP) — German authorities were under fire Thursday after it emerged that the prime suspect in Berlin’s deadly truck attack, a rejected Tunisian asylum seeker, was known as a potentially dangerous jihadist. German prosecutors have issued a Europe-wide wanted notice for 24-year-old Anis Amri, offering a 100,000-euro ($104,000) reward for information leading to his arrest and warning he “could be violent and armed”. Asylum […]
TOKYO, Japan (AFP) — Japan said on Thursday it has paid millions of dollars in UNESCO annual funding dues after holding back the payment over a World War II-era history row. UNESCO, the UN cultural and scientific body, last year agreed to China’s request to include documents in its Memory of the World register recording atrocities by Japanese troops after the fall of the Chinese city of Nanjing 1937. Japan — one of UNESCO’s biggest contributors […]
WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday named billionaire Carl Icahn, a vocal critic of what he calls government over regulation, to serve as a special adviser to overhaul “strangling regulations.” He also tapped Peter Navarro, an outspoken China critic, to head the White House National Trade Council, a new office that will oversee trade and industrial policy, in the latest sign he is moving ahead with plans to overhaul US economic […]
TOKYO, Japan (AFP) — Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s cabinet on Thursday approved Japan’s biggest annual defense budget in the face of North Korea’s nuclear and missile threats and a territorial row with China. The Cabinet approved 5.13 trillion yen ($43.6 billion) in defense spending for the fiscal year starting in April, up 1.4 percent from the initial budget for the current fiscal year. It marks the fifth straight annual increase and reflects the hawkish Abe’s […]
WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday condemned the Holiday market attack in Berlin as an “attack on humanity.” Trump emerged from his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida to speak briefly with reporters, who asked him to elaborate on a statement made just after the attack in which he described it as an Islamist attack on Christianity. “It’s an attack on humanity. That’s what it is,” he replied. “An attack on humanity and […]
by Yemeli Ortega Agence France Presse TULTEPEC, Mexico (AFP) — Mexico worked Wednesday to identify charred bodies left by an explosion that killed at least 33 people at its biggest fireworks market, as authorities investigated what caused the multi-colored salvo of destruction. Rescue workers were still searching for bodies — or survivors — in the smoldering wreckage of the San Pablito market in the Mexico City suburb of Tultepec. Dazed family members wandered outside […]
by Nova Safo Agence France Presse CHICAGO, United States (AFP) — The families of three Orlando nightclub shooting victims have filed suit against Facebook, Twitter and Google accusing them of providing “material support” to the Islamic State group by allowing the spread of extremist propaganda that inspired the attack. The assault by gunman Omar Mateen, who pledged allegiance to IS, left 49 people dead and 53 injured at the Pulse nightclub in June, in the deadliest mass […]
UNITED NATION, United States (AFP) — The UN Security Council will vote on Thursday on an Egyptian-drafted resolution demanding that Israel immediately halt its settlement activities in the Palestinian territories and east Jerusalem. A similar resolution was vetoed by the United States in 2011, and it remained uncertain if the measure would be adopted this time. Egypt circulated the draft late Wednesday and a vote was scheduled for 3 pm (2000 GMT) on Thursday. The […]
PARIS, France (AFP) — A far-right French mayor will be tried on hate charges over comments that include a claim the number of Muslim students in his city was a “problem”, a judicial source said Wednesday. Robert Menard, who is an ally of France’s anti-immigrant National Front party, will face a charge in a Paris court of incitement to hatred or discrimination, the source said. “In a class in the city centre in my town, […]
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AFP) — Children are being killed and wounded as well as witnessing horrific violence as Iraqi forces battle the Islamic State group in heavily populated Mosul, Amnesty International said on Thursday. Iraqi forces launched a massive operation to retake the country’s last IS-held city more than two months ago, and have pushed the jihadists out of several neighborhoods on Mosul’s eastern side. But the battle to retake the city — where a million […]
GUATEMALA CITY, Guatemala (AFP) — Taiwan’s president, Tsai Ing-wen, is to visit Guatemala next month amid US-China tensions spurred by US president-elect Donald’s Trump speaking by telephone with the Asian leader and threating to snub Beijing’s “One China” policy. Guatemala’s foreign ministry confirmed the visit, to take place January 11-12, just a week before Trump takes office on January 20. The Central American country is among just 21 nations in the world that defy China’s […]
