He said Ukranian officials first told him about the threat against him -- and their elaborate plan to thwart it -- a month ago. He said he was told that $40,000 had already been transferred for the alleged assassination attempt.

Babchenko said he became convinced that Russian government agencies were involved in the alleged murder plot when he was shown his passport photo and personal documents that he said could have been accessed by Russian special services.

News of the apparent murder had stunned Kiev on Tuesday. Shortly after Babchenko's death was announced, Moscow and Kiev began blaming each other for the killing of the journalist, who is a vocal critic of the Kremlin and left Russia in 2017, saying he no longer felt safe.

Babchenko called Russia an aggressor, and accused the country of killing children in its air support of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime.

Sunday's disaster ends a 440-day streak without a commercial passenger jet fatality -- the longest stretch in modern aviation history.

Days after Siegfried spoke, Republicans in the House of Representatives made clear their intentions to join the President no matter where his mind resides.

Here it's helpful to consider that Donald Trump came of age during the Nixon years, when the president proved unable to shut down an FBI investigation of the Watergate break-in and ultimately resigned over the attempted coverup. And our current President was tutored in the political arts by Nixon loyalist Roger Stone, who, like others, believe Nixon shouldn't have been impeached. (Stone has said that John Dean, the Watergate whistleblower, "perpetrated a fraud" against Nixon.)

The lesson learned by extreme Nixonites was that their guy should have fought harder. Trump, who loves to talk about himself as a fighter, isn't making that mistake. For this reason, we should expect more of the same, including the release of the Nunes memo, the possible resignation of Christopher Wray, and a deepening crisis for the nation. All of this in service to one man's state of mind.

The issue was catapulted to the foreground this year when, in protest against US recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital, demonstrators -- some waving Palestinian flags -- burned Israel's flag beneath Berlin's Brandenburg Gate and in migrant-rich neighborhoods.The ugly outbursts and a spike in anti-Semitic incidents -- insults, assaults, graffiti -- come against the backdrop of the far right's ascendance across Europe. Xenophobic populists now sit in the German parliament, too.

the small-scale triumphs of a new nativist party called the Alternative for Germany, or AfD, Germans strike me as uniquely conscious of the atrocities that a dictatorship carried out in the name of their nation -- and its meaning for the present.

And on the street, Jews in Germany are increasingly vulnerable: In the first half of 2017, for example, anti-Semitic crimes crept up from 654 to 681, according to German government figures. Germany's Interior Ministry says that 93% of those anti-Semitic hate crimes were perpetrated by right-wing extremists.

Jews say they are increasingly wary about living in Germany.

The right-wing nationalists of AfD predictably rejected it out of hand, convinced as they are that Germany is self-destructively obsessed with the Nazi past.

In light of the evidence -- and discounting the AfD's dark fantasies -- I stick to what I thought was written in stone, namely that schoolroom curricula, in high schools and immigrants' integration classes, should include on-site experiences to Nazi-era sites that are linked to in-class readings and films.

He said the Democrats still want something tangible on DACA but said it was problematic because it could run into the February 8 funding deadline.

Earlier Sunday, Trump called for Senate Republicans to change the chamber's rules to resolve the funding impasse as the government shutdown continued into its second day. He tweeted a call for McConnell to invoke the so-called "nuclear option" and thereby remove leverage for Senate Democrats.

It predicts the slowdown will come as stimulus measures, such as near-zero interest rates and quantitative easing, begin to lose their effectiveness.

"The coalition calls all honorable Yemeni people to get rid of the Iranian allied militants and end the era of oppression and threats from the militants allied with Iran." The Saudi Press Agency published the reaction.

The Myanmar military has been accused of pursuing a brutal crackdown on the Rohingya -- a largely Muslim ethnic minority not officially recognized by Myanmar -- following an outbreak of violence in August between soldiers and armed militants in Rakhine State, a poor region in the country's west.

Francis has previously decried violence against the Rohingya, calling them his persecuted "brothers and sisters."

The Myanmar government has repeatedly denied allegations they are conducting a systematic campaign of violence against the Rohingya, blaming the widespread damage on a militant insurgency.

Myanmar's military still holds the balance of power in the country after its transition to partial democracy in 2015

Even using the word Rohingya is controversial: the Myanmar government and much of the population regard the ethnic minority as illegal Bengali immigrants, and refuse to call them "Rohingya," despite many being able to trace their roots in the country back centuries.

Opposition leaders, the United States and their allies hold the Assad regime responsible for the mass slaughter of civilians and rebel fighters seeking an end to his family's decadeslong rule. US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has also repeatedly said there is no place for Assad in Syria's future.

Earlier this week, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Russia, Iran and Turkey agreed to hold a "congress" in Russia that would bring together Syria's warring factions for the peace talks.

Putin and his government have been among the chief supporters of the Assad regime, both militarily and in helping to negotiate ceasefires in the country's long-running civil war.

Zimbabwe's military seized control of state institutions early Wednesday and placed Mugabe under house arrest, but insisted it was not staging a coup, throwing the country into political limbo.

"There is a transition of power underway and it has tacit agreement from regional powers,"

Key to any transitional administration will be Emmerson Mnangagwa, the powerful former Vice President, who was widely tipped to become the country's next leader. Mnangagwa was dismissed by Mugabe last week, in a decision that triggered the latest political turmoil.

Mnangagwa remains one of the most powerful figures in the country and derives much of his support from the military. He has not been sighted in Harare since he was fired and his whereabouts are still unknown.

In a sign that power in the country is quickly shifting, several of Mugabe's longtime allies are turning on him.

"There are military tanks on the streets, which has never happened before," said one Harare resident. "The military is obviously now in charge despite their insistence that it's not a coup. It is."

The US embassy in Harare urged Americans to "limit unnecessary movements." It said that while the US government "does not take sides in matters of internal Zimbabwean politics," it was deeply concerned by the military's actions and called for restraint.

Mugabe, the only leader most Zimbabweans have ever known, ruled the landlocked country for 37 years with an iron fist.

He rose to power as a freedom fighter and was seen as Zimbabwe's Nelson Mandela. But he quickly waged a campaign of oppression to consolidate his position, extinguishing the political opposition through violent crackdowns.

Mugabe's hardline policies also pushed the country into poverty. Its flourishing economy began to disintegrate after a program of land seizures from white farmers, and agricultural output plummeted and inflation soared.

The Chinese government announced near the end of Mr. Trump’s visit that it planned to reduce tariffs on imported cars and to open up its financial sector to greater competition. But Chinese officials offered no promises on when or how much they might be willing to move on either issue.

The Chinese offers represented a bid to strengthen support for a less assertive American trade policy by reaching out to two industries that have a lot to lose.

At the start of this trip, Trump administration officials denied the president was willing to make concessions on trade in the hope of extracting what was needed on North Korea. But the president is also not calling on China to make any significant moves to open its markets, preferring to put the spotlight on big-ticket deals for American companies.

Some Chinese call the relationship a “fake alliance.”

Officials in Beijing and Washington point out that China has taken some measurable steps on North Korea. After the North’s accelerating nuclear tests and intercontinental ballistic missile launches, China approved tougher sanctions at the United Nations.It has agreed to sever banking ties, end joint-venture companies with North Korea and limit the export of diesel fuel. China shut down North Korea’s coal imports earlier this year.

For China, North Korea remains a valuable buffer against the possibility of a united Korean Peninsula that would probably be capitalist, democratic and allied with the United States, said Evans J. R. Revere, a former State Department official who dealt with Northeast Asia.

"I think the end of ISIS, the so-called Islamic State, does not really mean the end of geostrategic struggles," London School of Economics Professor Fawaz Gerges told CNN's George Howell.

"I want to tell Iran and its followers that they are losing their interferences in the Arab nation affairs. Our nation will rise just as it did before and the hands that want to harm it will be cut,"

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the remarks were a "wake-up call" to "take action" against Iran.

The missile launch was the first time the heart of the Saudi capital has been attacked.

Pakistan’s relationship with the United States has been rocky. The United States has long accused its military and its intelligence agency of harboring or ignoring militants, and relations have grown increasingly strained over Pakistan’s role in Afghanistan.

“Indeed, they threaten to retaliate against our family,” she said. “Their group will do us harm and punish us. So we ask that you are merciful to their people and, God willing, they will release us.”

“The success underscores the importance of timely intelligence sharing and Pakistan’s continued commitment towards fighting this menace through cooperation between two forces against a common enemy.”

The Trump administration has had modest success in freeing Americans held overseas.

Bannon's brash character was on full display in the interview

"un-Islamic"

This view reflects increasing radicalisation in Bangladesh, a secular Muslim-majority country where many show no sympathy for those perceived to be against their religion, even if that perception is without foundation.

The government has disputed claims by so-called Islamic State or al Qaeda-linked groups for the attacks, instead often blaming opposition parties or local Islamist groups it accuses of seeking to destabilise the country.

One official had warned staying on the islands would be "almost like suicide".

Irma is the most powerful Atlantic storm in a decade, and has already caused widespread destruction on several Caribbean islands

Another storm, Jose, further out in the Atlantic behind Irma, is a category four hurricane, with winds of up to 130mph.

Hurricane Katia, in the Gulf of Mexico, a category one storm with winds of up to 75mph, made landfall on the Mexican Gulf coast in the state of Veracruz late on Friday before weakening to a tropical depression.

"worst in living memory."

"People were fearful they would soon begin to starve,"

Almost half of Bangladeshis are employed in the agriculture sector, with rice as the single most important product

Recent figures from the the Asian Development Bank show that 31.5% of Bangladeshis live below the national poverty line

the world's "potential impact hotspots" threatened by "extreme river floods" due to global rise in temperatures