WORLD HEADLINES
By Krisztina Than and Stephanie Nebehay BUDAPEST/GENEVA (Reuters) – Hungary’s prime minister angrily accused illegal migrants on Friday of “rebelling” against the rule of law in his country as security forces across Europe struggled to control record flows of hungry, scared refugees. The United Nations called for the swift creation of large-scale reception centers in frontline states such as Hungary and Greece, and one U.N. agency warned that millions more
By Christian Lowe MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia called on Friday for Washington to restart direct military-to-military cooperation to avert “unintended incidents” near Syria, at a time when U.S. officials say Moscow is building up forces to protect President Bashar al-Assad’s government. The United States is leading a campaign of air strikes against Islamic State fighters in Syrian air space, and a greater Russian presence would raise the prospect of the
Turkish jets bombed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) targets in northern Iraq for a fifth straight night, while the leader of Turkey’s pro-Kurdish opposition accused security forces of a shoot-to-kill policy in another town under a week-long curfew. Hundreds of militants and members of the security forces have died since hostilities resumed between the PKK and the state after the collapse of a ceasefire in July, shattering a peace process launched
By Gabriela Baczynska and Lidia Kelly MOSCOW (Reuters) – By refusing to clarify the scale of its military presence in Syria, Russia keeps the West fearing a considerable build-up to win a stronger bargaining position when world powers sit down to talks on the conflict, Western diplomats in Moscow said. Russia’s central demand now is that its long-time ally, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, should be included in international efforts to
War planes from a Saudi-led military alliance bombed Yemen’s capital Sanaa on Thursday, in what witnesses described as the fiercest attacks on the city in over five months of war. The air strikes hit houses of political leaders in the Iran-allied Houthi movement and military bases, as explosions and wailing ambulance sirens forced a sleepless night on the city’s nearly 2 million shell-shocked residents. “They were afraid the building would
Dozens of Syrian government troops and Islamic State fighters have been killed in fighting around a government-held air base in eastern Syria in a region that is a stronghold for the jihadists, a monitoring group said on Thursday, Islamic State used at least two car bombs in its latest assault on the air base near the city of Deir al-Zor, where government troops are holed up, the Syrian Observatory for
By Tom Perry and Naline Malla BEIRUT (Reuters) – Western states have provided counter-terrorism training in Syria to Kurdish security forces that are battling Islamic State, the head of the force said, in a significant expansion of support to the Kurdish administration in northern Syria. The internal security force, known as the Asayish, is part of the Kurdish administration that has emerged in areas of northern Syria where the Damascus-based
By Alastair Macdonald STRASBOURG (Reuters) – European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker urged EU governments on Wednesday to accept a mandatory system to share out a wave of refugees fleeing war and poverty but also promised to improve frontier defenses and deport more illegal migrants. In his first State of the Union address to the European Parliament, Juncker outlined an emergency plan to distribute 160,000 refugees among the 28 EU member
By Gabriela Baczynska, Tom Perry, Suleiman Al-Khalidi and Phil Stewart MOSCOW/BEIRUT/AMMAN/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Russian forces have begun participating in combat operations in Syria to help defend President Bashar al-Assad’s government, three Lebanese sources familiar with the political and military situation there said on Wednesday. The sources, speaking to Reuters on condition they not be identified, gave the most forthright account yet from the region of what U.S. officials say appears
Iran’s Supreme Leader has said Tehran will not negotiate with the United States on any issue after the landmark nuclear deal with world powers in July, according to his official website on Wednesday. The comments appeared to contradict more moderate president Hassan Rouhani, who said on Tuesday the Islamic Republic was ready to hold talks with the United States on ways to resolve Syria’s civil war. “We negotiated with the
