World

CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuelan authorities yesterday released former opposition governor and presidential candidate Manuel Rosales from house arrest and freed five lesser-known anti-government activists from prison, Rosales said via Twitter.

BAGHDAD/ERBIL, Iraq (Reuters) – Three bombs killed 29 people in Baghdad yesterday as fighting intensified in the northern city of Mosul, where Iraqi government forces are trying to rout Islamic State militants from their last major stronghold in the country.

ISTANBUL/ANKARA (Reuters) – A gunman shot his way into an Istanbul nightclub packed with New Year’s revellers early today, killing at least 35 people and wounding more than 40 in what the provincial governor described as a terrorist attack.

ISTANBUL/ANKARA, (Reuters) – A gunman shot his way into an Istanbul nightclub packed with New Year’s revellers early on Sunday, killing at least 35 people and wounding more than 40 in what the provincial governor described as a terrorist attack.

PALM BEACH, Fla./ MOSCOW, (Reuters) – U.S. President-elect Donald Trump on Friday praised Russian President Vladimir Putin for refraining from retaliation in a dispute over spying and cyber attacks, in another sign that the Republican plans to patch up badly frayed relations with Moscow.

KINSHASA,  (Reuters) – Congolese President Joseph Kabila will step down after elections to be held by the end of 2017 under a last-minute deal struck by political parties yesterday, the lead mediator of the talks said.

(Reuters) – U.S. stocks slumped on the last trading day of the year yesterday, led down by Apple and other big tech stocks, but major indexes still posted solid gains in 2016.

COLOMBO, (Reuters) – Sri Lanka’s former leader Mahinda Rajapaksa on Thursday criticised a government plan to grant 15,000 acres for Chinese investment in his constituency, saying it will deprive people of agricultural land.

NEW DELHI/MUMBAI, (Reuters) – As India’s biggest corporate showdown heads from the boardroom to the courtroom and brings in a Who’s Who of the country’s legal profession, ousted Tata Sons chairman Cyrus Mistry vows a multi-layered battle for governance reforms at the $100 billion conglomerate, people close to him say.

NEW YORK, (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – The United Nations criticized the government of Ecuador yesterday for ordering the closure of a land rights advocacy group that supports an indigenous community protesting mining plans in land they claim as their ancestral home.

WASHINGTON,  (Reuters) – The FBI squarely blamed Russian intelligence services yesterday for meddling in the 2016 U.S.

HONOLULU/WASHINGTON, (Reuters) – President Barack Obama yesterday ordered the expulsion of 35 Russian suspected spies and imposed sanctions on two Russian intelligence agencies over their involvement in hacking U.S.

NEAR MOSUL, Iraq,  (Reuters) – Iraqi security forces yesterday began the second phase of their offensive against Islamic State militants in Mosul, pushing from three directions into eastern districts where the battle has been deadlocked for nearly a month.

WASHINGTON, (Reuters) – The Obama administration plans to announce today a series of retaliatory measures against Russia for hacking into U.S.

PEARL HARBOR, Hawaii, (Reuters) – Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe made a symbolic visit to Pearl Harbor with President Barack Obama on Tuesday, commemorating the victims of Japan’s World War Two attack and promising that his country would never wage war again.

MOSCOW, (Reuters) – Russian investigators looking into the crash of a military plane that crashed, killing all 92 on board, believe a fault with its wing flaps was the reason it plunged into the Black Sea, an investigative source told the Interfax news agency yesterday.

LIMA, (Reuters) – President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski proposed dredging a reservoir in a dry northern region of Peru to extract what he described as “much more gold” than what the country’s biggest gold mine holds, according to an interview with a local newspaper.

TAIPEI, (Reuters) – A group of Chinese warships led by the country’s sole aircraft carrier entered the top half of the South China Sea on Monday after passing south of Taiwan, the self-ruled island’s Defence Ministry said of what China has termed a routine exercise.

MOSCOW, (Reuters) – A Russian military plane carrying 92 people, including dozens of Red Army Choir singers, dancers and orchestra members, crashed into the Black Sea on its way to Syria on Sunday, killing everyone on board, Russian authorities said.

(Reuters) – US President-elect Donald Trump said yesterday he intends to dissolve his charitable foundation, the Donald J Trump Foundation, which has been under investigation by the New York attorney general.