Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy took the first step on Wednesday toward suspending Catalonia’s political autonomy and ruling the region directly to thwart a push for independence.He demanded that the regional government clarify whether it now considered itself independent following a speech by Catalan president Carles Puigdemont on Tuesday night, Reuters reported.This requirement is a […]

The US has flown two supersonic heavy bombers over the Korean peninsula in a show of force against Pyongyang, staging the first night-time joint aviation exercises with Japan and South Korea.Two B-1B Lancers based in Guam flew a mission in the vicinity of the Sea of Japan late Tuesday, the US Pacific Air Forces said […]

Myanmar’s army has carried out “well-organized, coordinated and systematic” attacks on Rohingya aimed at expelling them and ensuring they never return, the United Nations said Wednesday.In its first major report on violence in Rakhine state, the UN Human Rights Office said security forces had murdered, raped, tortured, pillaged and burned down Rohingya villages and crops, […]

The United Kingdom is keeping a close eye on the final use of weapons it sells to Saudi Arabia, according to a top diplomat.Matthew Rycroft, the UK’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, told reporters on Tuesday that the country has measures in place to ensure weapons are used correctly, Al Jazeera reported.“The UK has […]

A Kurdish security official confirmed Tuesday that hundreds of suspected self-styled Islamic State militants surrendered to Kurdish authorities after Iraqi government forces reclaimed the IS base in Hawija, a major Iraqi city north of Baghdad.“Approximately 1,000 men surrendered over the last week. Not all, however, are terrorists,” the security official said, explaining that many militants […]

Representatives of Afghanistan, China, Pakistan and the United States will meet in Oman next week to discuss reviving peace talks with Afghan Taliban militants, an Afghan official and a Pakistani Foreign Ministry source said on Wednesday.But it was not clear if Afghan Taliban representatives would join the talks. Taliban sources said they had not yet […]

Russia’s Foreign Ministry does not rule out ordering the United States to cut its diplomatic staff in Russia to 300 people or below, the RIA news agency cited Georgy Borisenko, the head of the ministry’s North America Department, as saying on Wednesday.In July, Moscow ordered the United States to cut the number of its diplomatic […]

Earlier Wednesday, Republican and Democratic leaders of the US House Foreign Affairs Committee urged Trump against abandoning the Iran nuclear deal on eve of Trump’s decision to decertify the JCPOA. US President Donald Trump said Wednesday he would soon reveal his strategy toward Iran and that he alone would decide on it, despite disagreement among […]

US President Donald Trump called the Iran deal “incompetently drawn” in an interview with Fox News on Wednesday night. “I think it was one of the most incompetently drawn deals I’ve ever seen,” Trump told Fox News’ Sean Hannity. “$150 billion given — we got nothing. They got a path to nuclear weapons very quickly, […]

The UN has announced that it is on “full alert” for a mass exodus of Rohingya Muslims as reports show a sharp spike of them fleeing Myanmar. “We’re back in a situation of full alert as far as influxes are concerned. It is a big increase to see 11,000,” said the spokesman for the UN High […]