Iraqi forces pushed into the self-styled Islamic State terrorist group stronghold of Hawija on Wednesday, commanders said, stepping up their assault against one of the militants’ last enclaves in the country.Government and allied forces backed by a US-led coalition launched an offensive last month to oust IS from Hawija, a longtime insurgent bastion, AFP reported.The […]

Tension mounted in Spain on Wednesday after Catalonia’s leader vowed that the region would declare independence within days, defying a stern warning from the country’s king that national stability was in peril.The courts meanwhile placed Catalan police officials and pro-independence civil leaders under investigation for alleged “sedition” as Spain sank deeper into its worst political […]

More than half of Germans, 57%, want a three-way coalition between Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives, the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP) and Greens to govern their country, a Forsa survey for Stern magazine showed on Wednesday.Merkel’s conservatives emerged from a Sept. 24 national election as the biggest party but in need of a partner or partners […]

Myanmar security forces summarily executed dozens of Muslim Rohingya villagers in Rakhine State two days into a crackdown on the persecuted group this August, Human Rights Watch said on Wednesday.In a press release, the international rights group said it was told by witnesses that soldiers had beaten, sexually assaulted, stabbed, and shot villagers who had […]

A global strike to disarm North Korea would be possible, yet its outcome will be uncertain, as it is a “closed state,” Russian President Vladimir Putin stated.“Let us speak to the point, after all – can someone launch a global disarming strike? Indeed. Will it reach its targets? It’s unclear because no one knows for […]

The United Nations braced on Friday for a possible “further exodus” of Muslim Rohingya refugees from Myanmar into Bangladesh six weeks after the world’s fastest-developing refugee emergency began, UN humanitarian aid chief said.Some 515,000 Rohingya have arrived in Bangladesh from Myanmar’s western state of Rakhine in an unrelenting movement of people that began after Myanmar […]

British Prime Minister Theresa May should quit to save the Conservative Party from losing the next election and 30 of her lawmakers back a plot to topple her, a former chairman of her party said on Friday.Just as Britain enters a crucial stage in Brexit talks with the European Union, May is now facing an […]

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is pushing for a coalition with the Free Democratic Party and Greens, saying it’s the best suited to govern the country.Speaking Saturday in Dresden to her party’s youth wing, Merkel said she’d hold talks with the pro-business FDP and left-leaning Greens and then present her Christian Democratic Union with a coalition […]

Russia will continue economic interaction with Iraqi Kurdistan in coordination with authorities in Baghdad, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov told Sputnik on Saturday.“We have been doing this, are doing and will be further doing this, but, for sure, in coordination with the Iraqi government,” Bogdanov said, commenting on future relations with Erbil.During the referendum […]

The European Union has been meeting more frequently with the UK’s opposition Labour Party as doubts grow over whether Prime Minister Theresa May will remain in her post through the conclusion of Brexit negotiations, the Daily Telegraph reported without saying where it got the information.As May brushed off calls from some Conservative Party members this […]