Luis Ramirez LONDON—NATO warships are heading to the Aegean Sea to help Turkey and Greece stop human traffickers, marking the entry of the alliance into efforts to deal with the growing flow of migrants to Europe.NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg on Thursday said three ships under German command were being deployed immediately to help the Turkish […]readmore
VOA News Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has repeated a threat to banish the 2.5 million Syrian migrants it is hosting within its borders, saying he could bus them to the borders of the European Union. In a speech to a business forum in Ankara Thursday, Erdogan confirmed comments that were leaked earlier in the […]readmore
VOA News A 94-year-old former guard at Europe’s most notorious concentration camp has gone on trial in Germany, where he faces 170,000 counts of accessory to murder. Reinhold Hanning has said he served at Auschwitz as a 20-year-old member of the German SS guard, but insists he served in a part of the camp where […]readmore
VOA News The head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, has left Moscow on a trip to Cuba in which he will both make a state visit to the Cuban President, Raul Castro, and hold a historic meeting with the head of the Roman Catholic Church, Pope Francis. Kirill left Moscow on Thursday, ahead […]readmore
VOA News NATO’s secretary general says the alliance’s increased “forward presence” in Eastern Europe sends a «clear signal» to any would-be aggressor. Speaking Wednesday in Brussels before a two-day NATO defense ministers meeting, Jens Stoltenberg said with an obvious reference to Russia, that “NATO will respond as one to any aggression against any ally.” «I […]readmore
Robert Berger JERUSALEM— A high-profile court case involving events that led to the Gaza war in 2014 has concluded in Israel; but not without controversy.A Jerusalem court sentenced two Israeli teenagers to long prison terms for murdering a Palestinian youth, an incident that Israeli officials described as «Jewish terrorism.» One Israeli got life in prison and […]readmore
Jeff Seldin WASHINGTON—Some U.S. officials are heralding new intelligence on the number of Islamic State (IS) fighters as a sign the tide is starting to turn in the battle against the terror group but there are concerns the self-declared caliphate’s larger, global strategy remains very well intact. The terror group, also known as ISIL or […]readmore
Luis Ramirez LONDON—U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has pledged nearly $1 billion in new U.S. aid for Syrian refugees at an international donors conference and is calling for the Syrian government and Russia to halt attacks on rebel-held areas in order to let humanitarian aid through. The conference opened Thursday in London with donor […]readmore
The United Nations is reporting new cases of alleged sexual abuse and exploitation by U.N. peacekeepers in the Central African Republic. The U.N. mission in the C.A.R., MINUSCA, said it has identified seven new possible victims in the town of Bambari. According to a statement Thursday, U.N. investigators believe at least five of the victims […]readmore
Simone Orendain BAHILE, PALAWAN PROVINCE, PHILIPPINES—In the tiny coastal Philippine town of Bahile in Palawan province, fishermen drop off the night’s catch with the local fish distributor.On the one main road that bisects the town, fish sorters load plastic tubs with the catch while children play on the shore during the sunny late morning. But […]readmore