- A day after the United States and Israel pulled out of of the U.N. culture and education body citing anti-Israel bias, UNESCO elected it’s first ever Jewish director general.
- The Donald Trump-Kaiser Wilhelm Parallels Are Getting Scary: Both men were insecure and undisciplined – and in charge of governments in thrall to the military. As Stephan M. Walt describes it, “Not only do Trump and the kaiser share some unfortunate personality traits, but there are also striking similarities between conditions in Wilhelmine Germany and the situation in the United States today. There are also some important differences, but they are not entirely reassuring.”
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Last-Minute Talks Calm Iraqi, Kurdish Troops Facing Off Over Kirkuk: That prompted KRG Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani to call for the United States, United Nations, and EU to “urgently intervene to prevent a new war in the region.”
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Trump Takes Aim at World Bank Over China Loans: “The bottom line here is right now we’ve got too high a percentage of the World Bank’s balance sheet that’s going to countries and to projects that already have ample borrowing capacity,” a senior Treasury official told Reuters, which noted that China is the IBRD’s biggest recipient of development loans, totaling $2.4 billion.
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Tony Blair has said for the first time that he and other world leaders were wrong to yield to Israeli pressure to impose an immediate boycott of Hamas after the Islamic faction won Palestinian elections in 2006.
- A rightward shift in the wealthy EU member of 8.75 million people would be a fresh headache for Brussels, as it already struggles with Britain’s decision to leave and the rise of nationalists in Germany, Hungary, Poland and elsewhere.
- Donald Trump’s unilateral decision to renege on the 2015 UN-approved nuclear deal with Iran was roundly condemned on Saturday by friends and foes alike. Britain joined France and Germany in declaring continued support for the agreement as written. Iran was backed by China and Russia in deploring Trump’s move as unwarranted and dangerously destabilising.
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US special forces deaths in Niger lift veil on shadow war against Islamists in Sahel: Some reports claimed US troops were on a mission to kill or capture a high-value target in the area, perhaps even Adnan Abu Walid al-Sahraoui, the leader of the only local faction of fighters to have formally pledged allegiance to the Islamic State.
- Hillary Clinton has denounced Donald Trump’s bellicose language toward North Korea, believing his verbal aggression has rattled American allies and will set off a nuclear arms race in the region.
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Hillary Clinton: Brexit vote was precursor to US election defeat.
- EU plans to offer Britain a detailed vision of a future post-Brexit trading relationship by Christmas, if sufficient progress has been made on the divorce bill by then, have been thrown into doubt following a meeting of diplomats from the 27 member states.
- The row over Britain’s Brexit divorce bill descended into the rhetoric of war on Friday, as Philip Hammond described Brussels as the “enemy” and Jean-Claude Juncker said any gratitude for the UK’s military defence of the continent did not exempt it from paying its dues, insisting: “Now they have to pay.”
- China: The Communist party prepares to hail mid-point of Xi Jinping’s 10-year term. But what do people make of their leader?
- Saudi Aramco has dismissed reports that it is considering shelving plans for the world’s biggest ever flotation, with the state-owned oil company saying the $2tn (£1.5tn) listing was on track for next year.
- A powerful cross-party group of MPs is drawing up plans that would make it impossible for Theresa May to allow Britain to crash out of the EU without a deal in 2019. The move comes amid new warnings that a “cliff-edge” Brexit would be catastrophic for the economy.
- Trump: President adds health care, Iran policy to an already long to-do list for lawmakers.
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President says he won’t certify that ‘rogue regime’ in Tehran is complying with nuclear agreement.
- Video: What is the 2015 Iran Nuclear Deal?
- Video: GOP May Backpedal on State and Local Taxes
- Video: The Trump-Russia Investigations: Who Are the Russians Involved (dated 8/31/2017)
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Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin calls for more criticism of trading surpluses, overhaul of lending practices.
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More Than 50 People Killed by Truck Bomb in Somalia’s Capital.
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Hamas Agreed Not to Carry Out Terror Attacks Against Israel, Palestinian Sources Say.
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Top Republican senator: Trump is ‘castrating’ Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.
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A group of ISIL fighters has evacuated the Syrian city of Raqqa overnight, taking civilians with them as human shields, a militia spokesperson said, as the battle continued with fighters who stayed behind.
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ISIS setbacks reported in Syria.
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Qatar-Gulf crisis: All the latest updates.
- Omar Alloush, a senior official of the Raqqa Civil Council, told Agence France-Presse a deal had been reached to allow fighters out of the city, which is on the verge of being captured by the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces.
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Russian Hacking and Influence in the U.S. Election: Complete coverage of Russia’s campaign to disrupt the 2016 presidential election.
- Politicians from North and South Korea will not hold direct talks in Russia on Monday about Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile program despite attending the same event, Russian news agencies said on Sunday.
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Germans disgruntled with Merkel’s liberal migrant policy abandoned her party in droves in September’s national election. Having recorded the worst conservative result since 1949, she must now try to piece together an awkward alliance with the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP) and environmentalist Greens.
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Pro-Russia candidates vie as Kyrgyzstan chooses president.
- Iran has closed its border gates with northern Iraq in response to an independence referendum in Iraq’s Kurdish region last month, Iran’s Tasnim news agency reported on Sunday.
- The death toll from twin bomb blasts that struck busy junctions in the heart of Somalia’s capital Mogadishu has jumped to 85, making it one of the deadliest attacks since an Islamist insurgency began in 2007.
- British transport minister Chris Grayling said on Sunday he didn’t think Britain would leave the European Union without a negotiated deal with the bloc.
- A convoy of Islamic State fighters left Syria’s Raqqa with some civilians overnight, the U.S.-backed militias fighting them said on Sunday, bringing the battle for their one-time capital near its end.
- U.S.-backed militias in Syria launched what they described as a final assault on Sunday against an Islamic State pocket inside Raqqa to clear the city of the remaining jihadists.
- Macedonians go to polls on Sunday to elect mayors and town officials in a test for the new government that has pledged to speed up the Balkan country’s accession to NATO and the European Union.
- A Taliban spokesman denied on Sunday accusations by a Canadian man that one of his children had been murdered and his wife raped while they were being held captive by militants who kidnapped them in Afghanistan in 2012.
- Some, but not all, foreign Islamic State fighters have left Syria’s Raqqa city on Sunday as part of a withdrawal deal with U.S.-backed militias, a local official told Reuters on Sunday.
- China: Wang Qin, 59, collects scrap at a demolished residential district on the outskirts of Beijing, working 15 hours a day and struggling on her own to pay for her granddaughter’s education.
- Four Moldovan citizens were killed and two others were injured on Saturday when a cargo plane chartered by the French military crashed into the sea near the airport in Ivory Coast’s main city, Abidjan, Ivorian and French officials said.
- Austria voted on Sunday in a parliamentary election that could see 31-year-old conservative Sebastian Kurz become chancellor on a pledge to take a hard line on refugees and prevent a repeat of Europe’s migration crisis.