Apple Inc is stepping up aid to the thousands of migrants that are streaming into Europe from war-torn countries, Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook told employees in an internal message on Friday. Cook wrote in a message on the company’s intranet site that the ... More »
MOSCOW/WARSAW Russia summoned Poland’s ambassador on Thursday to protest at the removal of a Soviet-era statue in a Polish town on the 76th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland, highlighting increased tensions between the neighbors. Katarzyna Pelczynsk... More »
SARAJEVO Bosnia’s National Museum, a custodian of culture for a region torn by ethnic divisions, re-opened on Tuesday after a three-year closure, displaying treasures including a medieval Jewish book of Passover rites. After Bosnia’s divided authorities finall... More »
BELFAST When IRA-linked gunmen turned their fire on one other this summer they triggered a political crisis in Northern Ireland’s fragile government of pro-British unionists and republicans working for a united Ireland. They also revealed an uncomfortable trut... More »
WASHINGTON Senior U.S. and Chinese officials concluded four days of meetings on Saturday on cyber security and other issues, ahead of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Washington later this month, the White House said. Cyber security has been a divisive ... More »
WASHINGTON A senior Pentagon official on Friday expressed concerns about Aerojet Rocketdyne Holding Inc’s reported $2 billion bid for United Launch Alliance (ULA), a 50-50 rocket launch venture of Lockheed Martin Corp and Boeing Co, and said the deal would req... More »
ISTANBUL Turkey’s military said on Monday its warplanes bombarded Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) targets overnight after the militants staged a deadly attack in which, one security source told Reuters, 16 Turkish soldiers were killed. The PKK said it had killed... More »
VIENNA/MUNICH Austria said on Sunday it planned to end emergency measures that have allowed thousands of refugees stranded in Hungary into Austria and Germany since Saturday and move step by step “towards normality”. Austria had suspended its random border che... More »
BEIRUT The overpowering stench of the rubbish piling up in Lebanon’s streets has become a potent symbol of the political rot protesters blame not only for the garbage crisis but a gridlocked sectarian power system unable to meet citizens’ most basic needs, fro... More »
BEIRUT/MOSCOW While the desperate flight of Syrians from their country’s war was dominating news bulletins this summer, yet another diplomatic push to end the four-year-old conflict was quietly running into the sand. That largely unnoticed failure has reinforc... More »
GUATEMALA CITY Guatemala looked bound for a presidential election run-off as results showed the three leading candidates splitting the vote on Sunday, prolonging political uncertainty just days after a graft scandal toppled the president. Otto Perez resigned a... More »
TOKYO Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe looks set to win a rare second consecutive term but economists predict he won’t use that victory to push through bold reforms such as labor market changes that are considered vital for long-term growth. Instead, Abe, wh... More »
KABUL Plastic surgeon Abdul Ghafar Ghayur is practicing his own brand of welfare in Afghanistan, where access to healthcare is limited and many cannot afford private treatment. The money he makes from the hundreds of nose jobs and Botox injections he performs ... More »
VENICE Few people have been left untouched by the plight of desperate refugees trying to make it to Europe, and at the Venice Film Festival, actors and directors alike shared their distress over the crisis, pleading for tolerance and compassion. Mexican direct... More »
WASHINGTON Saudi Arabia is satisfied with assurances from U.S. President Barack Obama about the Iran nuclear deal and believes the agreement will contribute to security and stability in the Middle East, a senior Saudi official said on Friday. Saudi King Salman... More »
BERLIN German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said on Tuesday that Spain’s economic development showed that the euro zone was tackling its crisis well. “Spain is the best example that we’ve done a lot of things quite right in Europe,” Schaeuble said at a b... More »
BERLIN Returning from her summer break in mid-August, German Chancellor Angela Merkel raised some eyebrows by describing Europe’s refugee problem as a bigger challenge than the Greece crisis, which had overshadowed all else in the first half of 2015. No one in... More »
WASHINGTON The White House is considering applying sanctions against companies and individuals in China it believes have benefited from Chinese hacking of U.S. trade secrets, the Washington Post reported on Sunday. The newspaper, citing several unidentified Ob... More »
ISLAMABAD U.S. National Security Adviser Susan Rice warned Pakistani political and military leaders on Sunday that recent attacks in Afghanistan by militants based in Pakistan threaten regional security, an official said. Rice also delivered an invitation from... More »
WASHINGTON President Barack Obama has invited Pakistan’s prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, for a meeting at the White House on Oct. 22, the U.S. National Security Council said on Sunday. The invitation came during a visit to Islamabad on Saturday and Sunday by Nat... More »
WASHINGTON U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley, a Democrat from Oregon, said on Sunday he would support the nuclear deal with Iran, moving President Barack Obama a step closer to having sufficient backing to ensure the deal stands. “I believe the agreement, titled the J... More »
SAN FRANCISCO Uber Technologies Inc [UBER.UL] has hired two top vehicle security researchers, the company said on Friday, high-profile additions that come as the ride-hailing service ramps up its work on technology for self-driving cars. Charlie Miller, who ha... More »
BEIRUT Two people were killed in a Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon in renewed overnight clashes between the mainstream Palestinian faction Fatah and hardline Islamists, security sources said. The two sides exchanged heavy gunfire in Ain al-Hilweh refugee c... More »
ANKARA The leader of Turkey’s pro-Kurdish HDP opposition said on Tuesday his party was ready to take part in an interim power-sharing government but that he would not be surprised if the prime minister tried to form a cabinet without the HDP. President Tayyip ... More »
NAYPYITAW Myanmar’s powerful commander-in-chief has reiterated that the military will respect the outcome of the country’s Nov. 8 election, seen as a crucial test of Myanmar’s reform process. Senior General Min Aung Hlaing said that the main concern of the arm... More »
SEOUL North and South Korea agreed early on Tuesday to end a military standoff that sparked an exchange of artillery fire and had ratcheted up tension on one of the world’s most heavily-fortified borders. Under an accord reached in the early hours, following m... More »
GUATEMALA CITY Guatemalan Finance Minister Dorval Carias resigned on Monday amid a deepening corruption scandal that has also featured calls for the impeachment of President Otto Perez. A statement released by Carias’ office did not give a reason for his decis... More »
WASHINGTON President Barack Obama, fresh from vacation and nine rounds of golf in Martha’s Vineyard, launched into a busy two weeks promoting renewable energy and his nuclear deal with Iran. With the U.S. presidential election campaign and China’s slumping sto... More »
U.S. Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush on Monday said his use of the term “anchor babies” to describe U.S.-born children of non-citizen parents was taken out of context and not derogatory, saying he was referring solely to activity he views as fraudul... More »
BENICASSIM, Spain An American Jewish musician who was controversially barred from a reggae festival in Spain before being invited back to play performed to catcalls from some pro-Palestinian protesters on Sunday, though the concert passed off peacefully after ... More »
SEOUL His father was afraid to fly, but North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has taken to the skies, building a series of small runways long enough to land light, private aircraft next to some of his palaces, satellite imagery shows. Construction on Kim’s personal ... More »
WASHINGTON Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush on Tuesday attacked Democrat Hillary Clinton for her handling of Iraq as secretary of state, saying she must share the blame for the rise of Islamic State militants, in a prelude to a potential general elec... More »
BERLIN British artist and anti-surveillance activist James Bridle is illuminating Germany with artwork exploring the darkest state secrets, cover-ups and information blackouts. Bridle’s “The Glomar Response”, showing this month at the newly opened Nome gallery... More »
BEIRUT Rebels fired dozens of rockets at central Damascus on Wednesday, a monitor and state media said, ahead of an expected visit to the Syrian capital by Iran’s foreign minister. The bombardment killed at least one person and injured more than 20 others, the... More »
BEIRUT A Syrian military source said on Tuesday the army had retreated to new defensive lines in a region of vital strategic importance to President Bashar al-Assad, seeking to avoid losses at the hands of advancing rebels. The insurgent advance into the Sahl ... More »
TOKYO Seventy years after Japan’s defeat in World War Two, the conflict’s legacy haunts East Asia and reconciliation remains elusive. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe may hope to lay the ghosts to rest with a statement on Friday marking the 70th anniversary of the wa... More »
NEW YORK Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is giving the U.S. Justice Department her private email server and a thumb drive of work-related emails from her tenure as secretary of state, a spokesman for her campaign said on Tuesday. Clinton’s us... More »
WASHINGTON Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has instructed her attorney to give the U.S. Justice Department her private email server and a thumb drive of work-related emails from her tenure as secretary of state, CNN reported on Tuesday, quoti... More »
WASHINGTON Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush on Tuesday will launch an attack on Democrat Hillary Clinton’s handling of Iraq when she was secretary of state, saying she must bear some of the blame for the rise of Islamic State militants. Bush is to de... More »
LAS VEGAS A team of security researchers has demonstrated the ability to hijack standard equipment inside computers, printers and millions of other devices in order to send information out of an office through sound waves. The attack program takes control of t... More »
NEW YORK A Russian art dealer accused by Polish authorities of illegally acquiring an 18th-century painting stolen during World War II by the Nazis cannot be extradited from the United States, a Manhattan federal judge ruled on Monday. U.S. District Judge Jed ... More »
SEOUL North Korea released video footage on Monday of a Canadian pastor confessing before a Pyongyang church congregation that he had committed crimes against the state. Hyeon Soo Lim, of the 3,000-member Light Korean Presbyterian Church in Toronto, traveled t... More »
(This August 2 story was corrected to change number of Palestinians held in detention without trial in paragraph 10 to 391 as of May not 5,442 as of June) By Dan Williams JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel’s security cabinet approved on Sunday the detention of citiz... More »
DOHA U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry began talks with Gulf states in Qatar on Monday, seeking to convince them of the merits of last month’s nuclear deal with Iran and to discuss the battle against Islamic State militants and the war in Syria. Most Gulf Ara... More »
CAIRO The United States and Egypt are returning to a “stronger base” in bilateral ties despite tensions and human rights concerns, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Sunday after talks with his Egyptian counterpart. “Egypt remains vital … to engagement... More »
TAIPEI Protests in Taiwan over textbook revisions which students say aim to brainwash them into accepting a “one China” view of history underscore the island’s growing sense of independence from its vast neighbor and geopolitical foe. Hundreds of youths storme... More »
WASHINGTON U.S. backers of the Iran nuclear deal are increasingly confident of enough Democratic support to ensure it survives review by Congress, despite fierce opposition by majority Republicans and a massive lobbying drive. By the time the House of Represen... More »
MEXICO CITY A prominent Mexican news photographer was among five people found dead in a middle-class neighborhood of the capital on Friday, the city’s prosecutor told reporters at a Sunday press conference. Ruben Espinosa, who a month ago claimed in interviews... More »
WASHINGTON The United States has decided to allow airstrikes to defend Syrian rebels trained by the U.S. military from any attackers, even if the enemies hail from forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, U.S. officials said on Sunday. The decision by... More »
WASHINGTON Donald Trump, the man to beat in this week’s first televised Republican presidential debate, said on Sunday he does not plan to attack his rivals and downplayed expectations for his performance, saying “I’m not a debater.” The combative real estate ... More »
BEIRUT Young people from two warring districts in the Lebanese city of Tripoli are taking to the stage in a comedy inspired by their own lives, trying to turn their backs on old rivalries inflamed by Syria’s civil war. “Love and War on the Rooftops” played to ... More »
BAYREUTH, Germany A renovated Richard Wagner Museum opening in Bayreuth this weekend to coincide with the Bavarian city’s annual Wagner opera festival puts the composer’s anti-Semitism and his family’s later ties to Adolf Hitler center stage for the first time... More »
BUJUMBURA A policeman and an opposition official died in violence marring the start of Burundi’s presidential election, already hit by opposition boycotts and protests over President Pierre Nkurunziza’s decision to run for a third term. Blasts and gunfire echo... More »
ADEN, Yemen Yemeni fighters backed by Saudi-led air strikes battled to take back northern suburbs of Aden from Houthi opponents on Tuesday, residents said, a day after completing their capture of the center of the strategic port city. The country’s dominant Ho... More »
WASHINGTON Senator John McCain urged Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on Monday to apologize to U.S. military families for saying prisoners of war are not heroes, in his first direct response to Trump’s remarks. Trump drew a barrage of criticism ... More »
WASHINGTON Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic leader in the U.S. House of Representatives, wrote to colleagues on Monday backing the nuclear agreement with Iran, as congressional Republicans railed against a U.N. vote on the deal. “As you may be aware, I believe tha... More »
HUSSEIN LOOKOUT, Israel As U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter walked along an Israeli lookout near the border with Lebanon, Israel’s Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon turned to him and said: “Probably Hezbollah is watching us.” Israel warned during Carter’s visit o... More »
WASHINGTON U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Monday welcomed the “new beginning” of ties between the United States and Cuba but said many differences remained between the two nations and that full normalization will be a long and complex process. Kerry, in... More »
LONDON Buckingham Palace scolded Rupert Murdoch’s top-selling Sun tabloid on Saturday for publishing a previously unknown film from 1933 that appears to show Britain’s Queen Elizabeth performing a Nazi salute as a young girl. The black-and-white film from the ... More »
BERLIN German lawmakers gave their go-ahead on Friday for the euro zone to negotiate a third bailout for Greece, but a warning from Chancellor Angela Merkel that the alternative was chaos failed to prevent a hefty rebellion in her own party. The Bundestag, the... More »
BERLIN German lawmakers gave their go ahead on Friday for the euro zone to negotiate a third bailout for Greece, heeding a warning from Chancellor Angela Merkel that the alternative to a deal with Athens was chaos. The Bundestag lower house of parliament, whos... More »
SIEM REAP, Cambodia Pit, only two and with just one eye, needed only 11 minutes before he detected a deadly mine buried in a Cambodian field, work that humans with metal detectors could have taken up to five days to investigate. But Pit is not human. He is par... More »
VIENNA A senior Iranian negotiator voiced hope on Monday that a nuclear deal with six major powers would be completed but cautioned that there was work to be done and he could not promise the talks would finish by Tuesday night, Iranian media reported. “I cann... More »
WASHINGTON The top Senate Republican said on Sunday that Congress is likely to block any nominee that President Barack Obama names as ambassador to Cuba and retain broad economic sanctions, even as Obama moves to establish diplomatic and economic ties with the... More »
WASHINGTON The top Republican in the U.S. Senate cast doubt on Sunday on whether President Barack Obama would be able to win approval in Congress for any nuclear deal with Iran, and some Democrats also expressed reservations. “I think it’s going to be a very h... More »
PHOENIX Boasting of his rising poll numbers, real estate mogul Donald Trump on Saturday railed against his rivals in the 2016 presidential race and criticized companies such as Macy’s that cut ties with him over his inflammatory comments about Mexican immigran... More »
UNITED NATIONS Some $3.4 billion in pledges were made at the United Nations on Friday to help Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea stamp out Ebola and begin rebuilding health systems and economies devastated by the worst outbreak on record of the deadly hemorrhagi... More »
WASHINGTON The chief of the U.S. federal hiring office resigned on Friday after massive computer hacks at the agency that put the personal data of more than 22 million Americans at risk, including people seeking sensitive security clearances. The White House s... More »
GUATEMALA CITY Guatemala’s forensic authority declared on Tuesday that ex-dictator Efrain Rios Montt is mentally unfit to be tried again on genocide charges, two years after a historic conviction of the former strongman was thrown out on a technicality. The Na... More »
CARACAS Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said on Monday that a recently created diplomatic back-channel with the United States is “working very well” at improving communication between the two countries following more than a decade of tensions. Maduro said ... More »
SAN FRANCISCO Reddit Chief Executive Ellen Pao on Monday issued an apology to users of the popular social news platform over the way the company handled the dismissal of a well-liked employee last week, a move that drew widespread outrage from users. The site’... More »
VIENNA A dispute over U.N. sanctions on Iran’s ballistic missile program and a broader arms embargo were among issues holding up a nuclear deal between Tehran and six world powers on Monday, the day before their latest self-imposed deadline. “The Iranians want... More »
WASHINGTON President Barack Obama pledged to increase U.S. support for the moderate opposition in Syria’s civil war on Monday and said the United States needed to do more at home to prevent attacks and combat Islamic State efforts to recruit followers. Obama, ... More »
CHARLESTON, S.C. South Carolina lawmakers took a step on Monday toward removing the Confederate battle flag that flies at the state house in Columbia, long denounced as a symbol of slavery by critics. A bill to banish the flag from a Civil War memorial on the ... More »
WASHINGTON The White House criticized Republicans in the U.S. Senate on Monday for not approving appointments aimed at fighting the Islamic State. White House spokesman Josh Earnest called on the Senate to confirm Adam Szubin as Treasury undersecretary for ter... More »
LONDON A restored World War Two Spitfire which was shot down over northern France in 1940 is expected to raise about $3 million for charity when it goes up for auction in London next week. The wreckage of the Vickers Supermarine Spitfire Mk.1A was recovered in... More »
TUNIS Tunisia expects to lose at least $515 million this year, or about a quarter of its estimated annual tourism earnings, following last Friday’s attack on a beach hotel that killed 39 people, mostly British holidaymakers. The attack by a gunman on the Imper... More »
DUBAI Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, departed Tehran for Vienna with nuclear chief Ali Akbar Salehi and Hossein Fereydoon, a brother and close aide to President Hassan Rouhani, for nuclear talks, state news agency IRNA reported on Tuesday. Zari... More »
WASHINGTON The U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) said on Monday it would temporarily suspend a program it uses to complete background investigations, following a data breach that compromised the personal information of millions of Americans. The progra... More »
WASHINGTON The failure of a SpaceX rocket over Florida on Sunday should not lead U.S. officials back to Russia to look for a rocket engine that can get military equipment into space, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain said on Monday. “This mi... More »
PARIS The suspected Islamist who attempted to blow up a French chemical plant on Friday has admitted killing his manager beforehand, a source close to the investigation said on Sunday, as police linked the suspect to a militant now in Syria. Yassin Salhi, 35, ... More »
