| What to watch at the Rio Games on Wednesday Posted: 16 Aug 2016 05:55 PM PDT  Day 12 of the Rio Games features medal action in track and field, beach volleyball, wrestling and more. Here are some things to watch (all times local): BEACH VOLLEYBALL The lineup for the medal matches ...
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| Wyoming voters narrow field for state's sole US House seat Posted: 16 Aug 2016 04:58 PM PDT  CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — Wyoming's lone seat in the U.S. House is up for grabs as voters head to the polls in Tuesday's primary election.
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| Russia uses Iran as base to bomb Syrian militants for first time Posted: 16 Aug 2016 03:25 PM PDT  By Andrew Osborn MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia used Iran on Tuesday for the first time as a base from which to launch air strikes against Syrian militants, widening its air campaign in Syria and deepening its involvement in the Middle East. In a move underscoring Moscow's increasingly close ties with Tehran, long-range Russian Tupolev-22M3 bombers and Sukhoi-34 fighter bombers used Iran's Hamadan air base to strike a range of targets in Syria. It was the first time Russia has used the territory of another nation, apart from Syria itself, to launch such strikes since the Kremlin launched a bombing campaign to support Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in September last year.
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| Olympics-Water polo-Croatia snuffs out Brazil's underdog bid for glory Posted: 16 Aug 2016 03:09 PM PDT By Joshua Schneyer RIO DE JANEIRO, Aug 16 (Reuters) - An upstart Brazilian water polo team that has gained a cult local following at the Games had its medal chances snuffed out by Croatia on Tuesday, falling to the reigning Olympic champions in the quarter-finals. Croatia won 10-6 over Brazil, whose players failed to score on two penalty shots or take advantage of a foul period where they had an extra man in the pool. Brazilians had taken a sudden interest in water polo, packing pool stadiums to cheer a team that upset current world champions Serbia in group-phase play. |
| Libyan forces say advancing towards recapture of Sirte from Islamic State Posted: 16 Aug 2016 02:34 PM PDT  By Ahmed Elumami SIRTE, Libya (Reuters) - Libyan forces said on Tuesday they had taken one of the last districts in central Sirte held by Islamic State militants, battling snipers and car bombs in their campaign to recapture the entire city. Forces aligned with Libya's U.N.-backed government in Tripoli are three months into a campaign to oust Islamic State from their former North African stronghold and have encircled the militants in a shrinking section of the city centre. Since Aug. 1, their progress has been aided by U.S. air strikes on Islamic State vehicles, weapons and fighting positions.
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| Libyan forces say advancing toward recapture of Sirte from Islamic State Posted: 16 Aug 2016 02:33 PM PDT  By Ahmed Elumami SIRTE, Libya (Reuters) - Libyan forces said on Tuesday they had taken one of the last districts in central Sirte held by Islamic State militants, battling snipers and car bombs in their campaign to recapture the entire city. Forces aligned with Libya's U.N.-backed government in Tripoli are three months into a campaign to oust Islamic State from their former North African stronghold and have encircled the militants in a shrinking section of the city center. Since Aug. 1, their progress has been aided by U.S. air strikes on Islamic State vehicles, weapons and fighting positions.
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| Russian bombing raid from Iran 'unfortunate': US Posted: 16 Aug 2016 02:06 PM PDT  The United States on Tuesday bemoaned Russia's use of an Iranian air base to launch a bombing raid in Syria, but credited Moscow for having given a brief advance warning. Russia's defense ministry earlier said long-range bombers and fighter jets took off from the Hamedan base in western Iran and "conducted a group air strike against targets of the Islamic State and Jabhat al-Nusra terrorist groups" in the provinces of Aleppo, Deir Ezzor and Idlib. "It's unfortunate, but not surprising or unexpected," State Department spokesman Mark Toner said.
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| Trump ignored facts with dig at Merkel's refugee policy: German minister Posted: 16 Aug 2016 02:02 PM PDT  Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump ignored the facts with his assertion that German Chancellor Angela Merkel's open-door refugee policy had resulted in a huge increase in crime, a German minister told Reuters on Tuesday. Trump said Merkel's decision to welcome more than a million refugees to Germany was a "disaster" during a campaign rally in Ohio on Monday and said his Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton wanted to be like the German leader. "In short, Hillary Clinton wants to be America's Angela Merkel and you know what a disaster this massive immigration has been to Germany and the people of Germany," Trump said.
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| The Latest: Gardner endorses Trump Posted: 16 Aug 2016 01:11 PM PDT  WASHINGTON (AP) — The Latest on the 2016 presidential campaign. (all times EDT):
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| In a first, Russia uses Iran base to bomb targets in Syria Posted: 16 Aug 2016 01:06 PM PDT  BEIRUT (AP) — Iran allowed Russian warplanes to take off from its territory to bomb targets in Syria on Tuesday, an unprecedented move that underscores the deepening cooperation between two powerhouses heavily invested in the Syrian civil war.
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| Iraqi Kurdish forces take more ground east of IS-held Mosul Posted: 16 Aug 2016 12:58 PM PDT  QARQASHAH, Iraq (AP) — The Kurdish fighters huddled in an abandoned home on the edge of Qarqashah, one of a dozen villages east of Mosul that was captured from the Islamic State group this week in operations aimed at laying the groundwork for an advance on the extremist-held city.
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| Turkey faces 'difficult path' to EU visa-free travel: German minister Posted: 16 Aug 2016 12:24 PM PDT  By Andrea Shalal and Michael Nienaber BERLIN (Reuters) - Turkey faces a long and arduous path to obtaining visa-free travel within the European Union, and immediate prospects are not bright, Germany's European affairs minister said on Tuesday. Michael Roth told Reuters that it was clear from the start that a migrant deal struck between the EU and Turkey required completion of 72 criteria before Turks could be granted visa-free travel. "Turkey faces a very long and difficult path.
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| Clinton leads Trump by six points in latest Reuters/Ipsos poll Posted: 16 Aug 2016 12:13 PM PDT  By Grant Smith NEW YORK (Reuters) - Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton has a 6-percentage-point lead over Republican rival Donald Trump, according to a Reuters/Ipsos tracking poll released on Tuesday. Clinton's support has ranged from 41 percent to 44 percent since late July, and was about 41 percent in the Aug. 11-15 online poll. Trump's support has experienced wider shifts ranging from 33 percent to 39 percent while his campaign has endured controversies and distractions in recent weeks.
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| Russia uses an Iranian base to fight in Syria, deepening regional clout Posted: 16 Aug 2016 12:05 PM PDT Russia has been a major player in the country's civil conflict since September 2015, but the airstrikes would indicate that Russia and Iran are working more closely than ever before. The airstrikes were carried out by long-range Tupolev-22M3 bombers from Hamadan air base, according to the Russian Defense Ministry's website. |
| Zimbabwe threatens social media activists after protests Posted: 16 Aug 2016 11:53 AM PDT  Zimbabwe on Tuesday threatened to crack down on social media activists pressing to oust President Robert Mugabe's government, and warned of the turmoil that followed the Arab Spring. The comments at a press conference in the capital Harare come after a series of street protests in recent weeks, protesting at Zimbabwe's faltering economy and fuelled by Internet activism. Mushohwe said the government would deal with social media activists and warned it was "closely watching the activities of these subversive elements".
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| 'Turkish James Bond' to take on coup plotters in new film Posted: 16 Aug 2016 11:41 AM PDT  A wildly popular Turkish television and film thriller franchise starring an action hero dubbed the "Turkish James Bond" will make a movie about the failed July 15 coup, its producer announced. The "Valley of the Wolves" franchise, has resulted in dozens of television episodes and several spin-off films since it was first created in 2003, enthralling many Turks. "In response to intense public demand to make a film or television series about the coup bid, our firm has taken the decision to make the film 'Valley of the Wolves -- Coup'," production company Pana Film said on Twitter late Monday.
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| 'Vote for Trump' Serbian ultra-nationalists chant as Biden visits Posted: 16 Aug 2016 11:33 AM PDT  "Vote for Trump! Vote for Trump!" the protesters, wearing T-shirts displaying an image of the U.S. Republican candidate, shouted as they gathered near the Serbian presidency building. Biden was on a one-day visit to Belgrade before traveling to Kosovo to encourage both countries to do more to normalize their relations.
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| US tracking scores of jihadists who fled Syrian city Posted: 16 Aug 2016 11:09 AM PDT  The US-led coalition fighting the Islamic State group is tracking 100-200 jihadists after they used human shields to flee a key city in Syria, a US official said Tuesday. IS fighters had controlled Manbij in northern Syria since early 2014, and the city had become a vital waypoint for the group as they funneled foreign fighters from the Turkish border to other parts of their self-declared caliphate. Unlike in Fallujah in Iraq, where local and coalition forces destroyed about 175 IS vehicles as they fled that city, the SDF outside Manbij did not open fire on outgoing cars.
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| Russia launches first Syria raids from Iran base Posted: 16 Aug 2016 11:09 AM PDT Russia said Tuesday its warplanes flew out of an Iranian airbase for the first time to bomb jihadist groups in Syria, as fighting raged for control of the ravaged city of Aleppo. The deployment marks a major switch in the bombing campaign the Kremlin launched in September to support Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad, as until now Moscow had only flown raids out of its bases in Syria and Russia. Washington, which heads a separate coalition fighting IS jihadists in Syria and Iraq, said it was warned of the raid ahead of time as required by a mutual agreement on flight safety. |
| Anti-IS forces retake central area in Libya's Sirte Posted: 16 Aug 2016 11:06 AM PDT  Libyan pro-government forces said they seized control Tuesday of another central district of Sirte as they tried to flush out the last Islamic State group fighters in the coastal city. Dozens of US air strikes this month have helped to weaken IS's hold on Sirte, which the jihadists seized last year and established as their main base outside Syria and Iraq. Backed by tanks and mortar fire, forces loyal to Libya's Government of National Accord (GNA) on Tuesday retook an area of central Sirte known as District Two, military officials said.
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| Germany must continue working with Turkey on migrants: Schaeuble Posted: 16 Aug 2016 10:33 AM PDT German Finance Minster Wolfgang Schaeuble on Tuesday rejected calls by opposition politicians to halt cooperation with Turkey over its crackdown on alleged putschists, saying Germany needed to continue working with Ankara on the migrant issue. Schaeuble, a member of Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative Christian Democratic Union, said it was important to continue working with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan to ensure his help in dealing with a flood of refugees from countries like Syria, Iraq. "I absolutely don't like what Erdogan is doing, but I don't agree that ... we should end cooperation with him," Schaeuble told an election gathering in the northern German city of Rostock. |
| Iraq PM surprised by judiciary's speed on graft case Posted: 16 Aug 2016 10:12 AM PDT  Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi on Tuesday expressed his surprise at the speed with which the judiciary closed a corruption case against the parliament speaker. Earlier this month, Defence Minister Khaled al-Obeidi accused Speaker Salim al-Juburi and several lawmakers of involvement in corruption. Juburi appeared in front of a commission which announced only moments later that it was closing the case for lack of evidence, a lightning outcome that fuelled suspicion over the judiciary's independence.
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| Kurd political arrests in Syria spark internal dispute Posted: 16 Aug 2016 09:43 AM PDT  Nearly a dozen arrests of Syrian-Kurdish political figures sparked an internal row and calls for protests on Tuesday in the northeast city of Qamishli, an AFP correspondent there said. The Kurdish police force, known as the Asayish, arrested at least 11 officials from two Kurdish political parties on Monday and Tuesday, party members told AFP. The officials were from the Yekiti party and the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP), two factions that oppose the powerful Democratic Union Party (PYD).
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| Morocco arrests four over alleged ties with IS Posted: 16 Aug 2016 09:39 AM PDT  Morocco on Tuesday arrested four men allegedly linked to the Islamic State jihadist group and planning attacks in the kingdom's economic capital Casablanca, the interior ministry said. It said authorities had dismantled "a terrorist cell of four extremists who were active between Casablanca and Mograne", a rural area some 50 kilometres (30 miles) north of political capital Rabat. Initial findings in the investigation pointed to the men having "pledged allegiance" to IS and preparing to attack "vital sites in Casablanca", it said.
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| The Latest: Russia bombers back home after using Iran base Posted: 16 Aug 2016 09:20 AM PDT  BEIRUT (AP) — The Latest on the developments in Syria's civil war after Russian warplanes took off on Tuesday from Iran to bomb Islamic State militants in Syria (all times local):
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| Radical UK Islamist preacher Anjem Choudary guilty of inviting support for Islamic State Posted: 16 Aug 2016 09:08 AM PDT  By Michael Holden LONDON (Reuters) - Anjem Choudary, Britain's most high-profile Islamist preacher whose followers have been linked to numerous plots across the world, has been found guilty of inviting support for Islamic State. Choudary, 49, was convicted at London's Old Bailey court of using online lectures and messages to encourage support for the banned group which controls large parts of Syria and Iraq. Notorious in Britain where the tabloids denounce him as a hate preacher, he is also well-known abroad, making regular TV appearances in the wake of attacks by Islamist militants to blame Western foreign policy for targeting Muslims.
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| Radical Islamist preacher Anjem Choudary guilty of inviting support for IS Posted: 16 Aug 2016 08:22 AM PDT  By Michael Holden LONDON (Reuters) - Anjem Choudary, Britain's most high-profile Islamist preacher whose followers have been linked to numerous plots across the world, has been found guilty of inviting support for Islamic State. Choudary, 49, was convicted at London's Old Bailey court of using online lectures and messages to encourage support for the banned group which controls large parts of Syria and Iraq. Notorious in Britain where the tabloids denounce him as a hate preacher, he is also well-known abroad, making regular TV appearances in the wake of attacks by Islamist militants to blame Western foreign policy for targeting Muslims.
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| Iraqi response to displaced 'woefully insufficient': Amnesty Posted: 16 Aug 2016 07:11 AM PDT  Iraq's assistance to civilians forced from their homes by conflict has been far from adequate, Amnesty International said Tuesday, warning that fresh displacement could spell catastrophe. "The Iraqi authorities' response to displaced people has been woefully insufficient and much of the world has largely ignored their plight," the rights group said. The northern city of Mosul, the jihadists' last major stronghold and the next Iraqi target of the war on IS, has a civilian population many times larger.
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| Brazil hopes to feed off famed Maracana in soccer semifinal Posted: 16 Aug 2016 07:08 AM PDT  RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Brazil will look for inspiration from playing at the historic Maracana Stadium when it faces Honduras in the semifinals of the men's Olympic soccer tournament on Wednesday.
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| Pakistani Taliban faction denies links to Islamic State after hospital bombing Posted: 16 Aug 2016 07:00 AM PDT By Asad Hashim ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - A Pakistani Taliban breakaway faction that claimed responsibility for the bombing of a hospital last week said on Tuesday it had no links with Islamic State, whose leadership also said it was behind the attack. Jamaat-ur-Ahrar, which briefly declared allegiance to Islamic State in 2014, said in an audio statement that its fight was solely against the Pakistani state and that linking it to trans-national Islamist militant networks was wrong. "We want to make it clear that our movement has no connection to Daesh or al Qaeda," the group's leader, Omar Khalid Khorasani said, using the Arabic acronym "Daesh" to refer to Islamic State. |
| Bulgarian court Oks extradition of French terror suspect Posted: 16 Aug 2016 06:37 AM PDT SOFIA, Bulgaria (AP) — A French citizen with family ties to the attack on the Charlie Hebdo satirical newspaper in Paris will be extradited to France to face terror charges, a Bulgarian court ruled Tuesday. |
| Analysis: Trump blasts nation-building but wants Iraq oil Posted: 16 Aug 2016 06:30 AM PDT  WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump says that as president he would end "our current strategy of nation-building and regime change" because they don't work. His dislike for nation-building is shared by many, including none other than the target of his criticism, President Barack Obama.
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| Bosnian authorities arrest alleged IS recruiter Posted: 16 Aug 2016 06:27 AM PDT SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) — Bosnian authorities say they have arrested a man suspected of recruiting members for the Islamic State group. |
| Clinton names Obama veterans to White House transition team Posted: 16 Aug 2016 06:22 AM PDT  By Luciana Lopez WEST HARRISON, N.Y. (Reuters) - Looking to lay the groundwork for her presidency if she wins the White House in November, Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton named several veterans of President Barack Obama's administration for her transition team on Tuesday. Ken Salazar, a former interior secretary and U.S. Senator from Colorado, will lead a team of four co-chairs including one-time national security adviser Tom Donilon and Neera Tanden, a former Obama aide who now leads the progressive Center for American Progress think-tank, the Clinton campaign said. The other co-chairs are former Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm and Maggie Williams, director of Harvard's Institute of Politics, the campaign said in a statement.
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| Trump isn't alone in rethinking America's role in the world Posted: 16 Aug 2016 06:20 AM PDT Donald Trump has emerged as perhaps the most isolationist presidential candidate in a half-century, with an "America First" platform that criticizes costly military interventions abroad and questions US commitments to treaty allies that don't pay their way. In a major foreign policy speech on Monday, he invoked the cold war in vowing "foreign policy realism" that prioritized the fight against Islamic terrorism. Recommended: What do you know about Donald Trump? |
| Bulgaria approves extradition of Charlie Hebdo killer relative Posted: 16 Aug 2016 06:02 AM PDT  A Bulgarian court ordered Tuesday that the brother-in-law of one of the men who attacked French magazine Charlie Hebdo be extradited to France after he was caught allegedly trying to join Islamic State fighters in Syria. Mourad Hamyd, 20, whose sister was married to Charlie Hebdo gunman Cherif Kouachi, was barred from entering Turkey late last month and handed over to Bulgaria's border authorities. On January 7 2015, the Al-Qaeda-linked Kouachi brothers killed 12 people at the headquarters of the Charlie Hebdo satirical weekly in Paris.
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| Iranian police say security forces killed 4 Sunni militants Posted: 16 Aug 2016 05:52 AM PDT TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iranian security forces killed four Sunni militants and detained six others in two separate firefights in the country's west over the past 24 hours, local media and police reported on Tuesday. |
| Trump Miscalculates Again When He Attacks Obama on Foreign Policy Posted: 16 Aug 2016 05:00 AM PDT  In his effort to reset a presidential campaign that has dangerously gone off track, Republican Donald Trump mistakenly continues to believe there is much to be gained politically by closely linking Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton to President Obama's foreign policy record. Trump last week shocked Republicans and Democrats alike by insisting that Obama was the "founder" of ISIS and that Clinton, his former secretary of state, was the "cofounder" because of their badly flawed policies in Iraq and Syria that led to the rise of the bloody terrorist group.
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| An Olympic message to the Brazilian Bob Costas: Shut it! Posted: 16 Aug 2016 04:46 AM PDT  RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — When a BBC announcer suggested that a Brazilian broadcaster needed to shut up at the start of a swimming race at the Rio Olympics, he was voicing the feelings of many in the host country.
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| Quotations in the News Posted: 16 Aug 2016 04:31 AM PDT "If we had controlled the oil like I said we should, we could have prevented the rise of ISIS in Iraq, both by cutting off a major source of funding and through the presence of U.S. forces necessary to safeguard the oil and vital infrastructure products necessary for us to have the oil." — Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, who advocated seizing Iraq's oil wealth in the aftermath of the U.S. invasion in 2003 that toppled Saddam Hussein. |
