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TOP STORIES
Suicide truck bomb kills more than 80 in Iraq, most of them
Iranian pilgrims
BAGHDAD – A suicide truck bomb kills more than 80 people,
most of them Iranian Shi’ite pilgrims, at a petrol station in
the city of Hilla 100 km (62 miles) south of Baghdad, police and
medical sources say. (MIDEAST-CRISIS/IRAQ-BLAST (UPDATE 1),
moved, 181 words)
WTO chief says no indication that Trump wants to take U.S.
out of group
GENEVA – World Trade Organization chief Roberto Azevedo says
he has no indictation that U.S. President-elect Donald Trump
wanted to withdraw the United States from the global trading
body. (USA-TRUMP/WTO (UPDATE 1, TV, PIX), moved, by Tom Miles,
419 words)
+ See also:
– USA-TRUMP/ (UPDATE 9, PICTURES, TV), moved, by Roberta
Rampton and Doina Chiacu, 1,100 words
– USA-TRUMP/HALEY-INDIA, moved, by Manoj Kumar, 560 words
– USA-MUSLIMS/, moved, by Lisa Lambert, 315 words
Colombia, FARC to sign peace in sober ceremony amid
opposition
BOGOTA – Colombia’s President Juan Manuel Santos and Marxist
FARC rebel leader Rodrigo Londono are to sign a new, revised
peace accord in a much more sober ceremony than the first deal
which was rejected last month by millions at a plebiscite.
(COLOMBIA-PEACE/ (TV, PIX) moved, by Helen Murphy, 400 words)
Turkey to retaliate after suspected Syrian air strike kills
soldiers
ANKARA – Turkey says it will retaliate after three of its
soldiers were killed in what the military said was a suspected
Syrian air strike, the first such deaths at the hands of Syrian
government forces since Ankara launched a cross-border incursion
in August. (MIDEAST-CRISIS/SYRIA-TURKEY (UPDATE 3, TV), moved,
by Tulay Karadeniz and Ece Toksabay, 486 words)
Kurds, Shi’ite fighters to coordinate after sealing off
Mosul
ERBIL/BAGHDAD – Iraqi Kurdish and Shi’ite forces agree to
coordinate movements after cutting off Mosul from the rest of
the territory held by Islamic State in western Iraq and Syria in
support of a U.S-backed offensive to capture the city, U.S. and
Iraqi officials says. (MIDEAST-CRISIS/IRAQ (WRAPUP 1, TV,
PICTURE), moved, by Isabel Coles and Saif Hameed, 620 words)
+ See also:
– MIDEAST-CRISIS/IRAQ-CHRISTIANS (PICTURE, TV), moved, by
Ulf Laessing, 665 words
– MIDEAST-CRISIS/IRAQ-OIL (PICTURE, TV), moved, by John
Davison, 585 words
Aleppo rebels agree aid plan, Russia, Syria yet to approve –
UN
GENEVA – Syrian rebels in besieged east Aleppo agree to a
U.N. plan for aid delivery and medical evacuations, but the
United Nations is awaiting a green light from Russia and the
Syrian government, humanitarian adviser Jan Egeland says.
(MIDEAST-CRISIS/SYRIA-ALEPPO-UN (UPDATE 2, TV), moved, by
Stephanie Nebehay, 429 words)
EUROPE
EU’s Schulz steps down, fuelling German, EU reshuffles
BRUSSELS – European Parliament President Martin Schulz is
returning to German politics, raising the prospect he may
challenge Angela Merkel as chancellor and prompting speculation
of a reshuffle in European Union institutions.
(EU-GERMANY/SCHULZ (UPDATE 2, TV, PICTURE), moved, by Alastair
Macdonald and Philip Blenkinsop, 640 words)
Ukraine’s Poroshenko to hear some praise, calls to do more
at summit with EU
BRUSSELS – European Union leaders will praise Ukrainian
President Petro Poroshenko for his reform efforts but behind the
scenes the EU is losing patience over Kiev’s slow fight against
corruption and the intractable conflict in the country’s east.
(UKRAINE-CRISIS/EU, moved, by Gabriela Baczynska, 535 words)
Greek public sector workers strike against EU/IMF reforms
ATHENS – Greek public-sector workers go on strike to protest
labour and pension reforms and state asset sales which the
left-led government agreed with the country’s official creditors
in exchange for bailout loans. (EUROZONE-GREECE/STRIKE (UPDATE
1, PICTURE, TV), moved, 320 words)
Lufthansa pilots’ strike hits bookings as more planes
grounded
FRANKFURT – A walkout by Lufthansa pilots in a
long-running pay dispute leads to more flight cancellations and
hits bookings at one of Europe’s biggest airlines.
(LUFTHANSA-UNIONS/ (UPDATE 2), moved, by Peter Maushagen, 446
words)
UK wartime codebreaking centre becomes cyber education
college
BLETCHLEY, England – It was once the home of Britain’s
codebreakers during World War Two. Now more than 70 years later,
Bletchley Park is preparing to host the UK’s first national
college of cyber education, with a first intake of students
starting in September 2018. (BRITAIN-CYBER/SCHOOL (TV, PICTURE),
moved, by Alex Fraser, 440 words)
UNITED STATES
New York using sand-filled trucks to protect Thanksgiving
parade
NEW YORK – New York police will use sand-filled trucks,
radiation detectors, bomb-sniffing dogs and heavily armed
officers on Thursday to defend the 90th Macy’s Thanksgiving Day
Parade, which Islamic State has encouraged its followers to
attack. (USA-THANKSGIVING/PARADE (PICTURE), moved, by Daniel
Trotta, 390 words)
+ See also:
– OBAMA-THANKSGIVING/ (UPDATE 1, PICTURE), moved, by Jeff
Mason, 335 words
MIDDLE EAST
Wildfires tear across Israel; police chief suspects
“political” arson
HAIFA – Tens of thousands of residents are ordered to leave
Israel’s third largest city as wildfires tear across central and
northern Israel, and the country’s chief of police says
politically motivated arson was behind some of the blazes.
(ISRAEL-FIRES/ (UPDATE 2, TV, PIX), moving by 1600 GMT, by Rami
Amichai, 670 words)
Blast kills two at governor’s office in southern Turkish
city
ISTANBUL – An explosion kills two people and wounds more
than 30 outside the governor’s office in the southern Turkish
city of Adana, weeks after the United States warned of attacks
by what it called extremist groups. (TURKEY-BLAST/ (UPDATE 5,
TV, PICTURE), moved, by Daren Butler, 550 words)
GLOBAL ECONOMY
OECD calls for more public spending on growth-friendly
policies
PARIS – Governments need to get over the fixation with debt
levels and ramp up spending on growth-friendly policies while
cutting tax burdens where possible, the OECD says.
(GLOBAL-ECONOMY/OECD (moved), by Leigh Thomas, 400 words)
German growth halves on weak trade, uncertainty clouds euro
zone outlook
BERLIN – Growth in leading euro zone economies slows over
the summer months and an expected German-led rebound at the end
of the year may prove too short-lived for the European Central
Bank to unwind its monetary stimulus. (EUROZONE-ECONOMY/
(WRAPUP), by Michael Nienaber, 816 words)
ECB sees rising risks to euro zone financial stability,
watching for Italian vote fallout
FRANKFURT – The European Central Bank sees rising risks to
euro zone financial stability and is watching for any fallout
from Italy’s constitutional referendum next month, ECB Vice
President Vitor Constancio said on Thursday.
(EUROZONE-ECONOMY/ECB (UPDATE 2), moved, by Francesco Canepa and
Balazs Koranyi, 587 words)
WIDER IMAGE
With rap and poetry, Cape Town tries to bridge racial
divides
CAPE TOWN – A city surrounded by ocean and divided in two by
the naked rock of Table Mountain, Cape Town’s incredible natural
beauty belies a past of hundreds of years of slavery and racial
oppression. (SAFRICA-RACE/ (PICTURE), moved, by Joe Penney, 565
words)
ASIA
At least 67 killed in China power plant mishap
BEIJING – Rescuers in China are battling to free a worker
trapped after the collapse of a platform under construction at a
power plant kills at least 67 people, state media says.
(CHINA-COLLAPSE/ (UPDATE 2, TV, PICTURE), moved, 290 words)
U.S., China agree on new N.Korea UN sanctions, Russia has
issues -diplomats
UNITED NATIONS – The United States and China have agreed on
new U.N. sanctions to impose on North Korea over the nuclear
test it conducted in September, but Russia is delaying action on
a draft resolution, a senior Security Council diplomat says.
(NORTHKOREA-NUCLEAR/UN (UPDATE 1, TV), moved, by Michelle
Nichols, 380 words)
Indonesia braces for new protests as police leaflet capital
JAKARTA – Indonesia’s president has called for calm in the
country’s “heated” political situation as helicopters dropped
police leaflets over Jakarta, warning residents of the risk of
harsh penalties if new rallies led by Islamists turn violent.
(INDONESIA-POLITICS/ (TV, PICTURE), moved, by Kanupriya Kapoor
and Hidayat Setiaji, 430 words)
Taiwan lists the times it says China blocked its diplomatic
space
TAIPEI – Taiwan is updating its foreign ministry website
listing the times it says China tried to block its international
space, a move endorsed by the island’s independence-leaning
ruling party. (TAIWAN-CHINA/, moved, by J.R. Wu, 355 words)