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U.S. President Donald Trump’s pardon of four American men convicted of killing Iraqi civilians while working as contractors in 2007 violated U.S. obligations under international law

U.S. contractors opened fire in busy traffic in a Baghdad square and killed 14 unarmed Iraqi civilians.

worked for the private security firm Blackwater owned by the brother of Trump’s education secretary

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will designate the Houthi rebels in Yemen as a foreign terrorist organization

It is not clear how the terrorist designation will inhibit the Houthi rebels, who have been at war with the Saudi-backed government in Yemen for nearly six years but, some analysts say, pose no direct threat to the United States.

Mr. Pompeo will announce the designation in his last full week as secretary of state, and more than a month after meeting with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia, who began a military intervention with Arab allies against the Houthis in 2015.

The Biden administration will begin phasing in a new asylum process on Feb. 19 for the backlog of people seeking asylum on the southern U.S. border, but Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told NPR that migrants must avoid traveling to the U.S. border while the new system gets up and running.

"It's a very, very important cautionary note that they should not travel to the border. That will only increase the pressure on the humanitarian effort to provide for them carefully and safely,"

The Department of Homeland Security plans to start allowing in a trickle of asylum-seekers — about 300 people per day — from among an estimated 25,000 people with "active cases" in the now-defunct Migrant Protection Protocols program.

The heat is unrelenting in the middle of a December day in eastern Sudan. It's hard to find any shade in this arid landscape. It's mostly dust and boulders — and, for now at least, it is the temporary home of tens of thousands of Ethiopian refugees who have crossed the border to flee the fighting in their country.

Last month, the Ethiopian government launched a military offensive against a rebellious regional government. The ensuing conflict has killed hundreds, and almost 50,000 Ethiopians have crossed the country's northwestern border into Sudan. It's a refugee crisis that is straining the humanitarian infrastructure in the country. The United Nations refugee agency has appealed for $150 million to help cope with the situation.

"[Militias] were slaughtering people with knives and machetes," she says.

When the United States withdrew from Afghanistan last summer, it was left with a critical choice: allow the collapse of a state that had mostly been kept afloat by foreign aid or work with the Taliban, its former foes who were in power, to prevent that outcome.

The United States should swallow the bitter pill of working with the Taliban-led government in order to prevent a failed state in Afghanistan. Kneecapping the government through sanctions and frozen aid won’t change the fact that the Taliban are now in charge, but it will ensure that ordinary public services collapse, the economy decays and Afghans’ livelihoods shrink even further.

Their cash-based economy is starved of currency, hunger and malnutrition are growing, civil servants are largely unpaid, and essential services are in tatters.

the British, during their late Victorian heyday, believed theirs was the exceptional Land of Hope and Glory, a vanguard of progress and model for all nations.[3] Can it be—O scary thought—that the same faith in Special Providence that inspires energy, ingenuity, resilience, and civic virtue in a nation, may also tempt a people into complacency, arrogance, self-indulgence, and civic vice?

what Americans believe about their past is always a powerful influence on their present behavior and future prospects. No wonder we have “culture wars” in which the representation of history is a principal stake.

my study of European international relations naturally inclined me to think about foreign policy in terms of Realpolitik, balance of power, geography, contingency, tragedy, irony, folly, unintended consequences, and systemic interaction—all of which are foreign if not repugnant to Americans.

North Korea gave a positive spin Saturday to the visit of its special envoy to China but made no mention of China’s push for the North to resume negotiations

Vice Marshal Choe Ryong-hae, was at odds with portrayals in China’s state-run media,

Kim Jong-un, whose belligerent behavior has annoyed China, sent a personal letter to Mr. Xi that referred to the deep friendship between the two allies that “cannot be exchanged for anything.”

Syrian rebels group, including Islamists formerly linked to al-Qaeda, launched a military offensive to break the government’s siege of Aleppo, the last major rebel-held city in Syria where 275,000 people have been trapped for months.

Russian and Syrian airstrikes have pounded the rebel-held eastern part of the divided city. Civilian targets, humanitarian convoys, and hospitals have been struck. The government controls the western portion of Aleppo

rebels fired missiles at al-Nayrab, in the east of the city, killing 15 people and wounding 100 others

Islamic State has moved hundreds of civilians from villages around the city to use as human shields,

United Nations said the militants may have killed nearly 200 people.

hit a Shiite mosque in northern Iraq, killing more than a dozen women and children.

The European Union is desperate to keep Syrian refugees from bolting from Turkey for Europe. But the prospects for Syrians in Turkey have been slim. Now the EU is launching its biggest aid program yet – more than $375 million aimed at a million of the neediest Syrians in Turkey.

a debit card that can be used to buy whatever food, medicine or clothing a family needs, or to get cash.

There have been cash-based aid programs before, but not on this scale. Jonny Hogg, spokesmen for the World Food Program, says this is the biggest humanitarian relief contract ever signed by the EU.

One Canadian businessman decided he could do more for desperate Syrians fleeing their war-torn country. So he bankrolled an Ontario town's resettlement of over 200 refugees.

Canada allows private citizens, along with authorised sponsorship groups, to directly sponsor refugees by providing newcomers with basic material needs like food, clothing, housing, and support integrating into Canadian society. But Estill was looking to make a big impact, quickly.

And he says his parents, who sponsored two Ugandan refugees when he was a child, instilled humanitarian values in him.

Iraqi forces raise flag at Mosul University in push against ISIS

Published January 14, 2017 FoxNews.com Facebook0 Twitter0 Email Print A member of Iraqi Special Operations Forces (ISOF) stands in a military vehicle at the University of Mosul during a battle with Islamic State militants, in Mosul, Iraq, January 14, 2017. REUTERS/Ahmed Saad - RTSVHSV Iraqi special forces raised the Iraqi flag above the buildings at the Mosul University complex on Friday as they continued the battle for control of the city against Islamic State militants.

"We congratulate the Iraqi Security Forces on their continued progress in Eastern Mosul,” U.S. army Col. John Dorrian, a spokesman for the U.S.-led anti-IS coalition said in a statement. “Work still needs to be done but ISIL's days in Mosul are quickly coming to an end.

Mr. Trump has made similar comments before. But the fact that he made them in a joint interview with two European publications — The Times of London and Bild, a German newspaper — and did so days before assuming the presidency alarmed European diplomats.

“They have sanctions on Russia — let’s see if we can make some good deals with Russia,”

Mr. Trump was critical of Russia’s military intervention in Syria, including airstrikes in Aleppo that American officials say have hit hospitals and killed civilians, saying it had led to a “terrible humanitarian situation.”

American commandos are on the front lines in Syria in a new push toward the Islamic State’s de facto capital in Raqqa, but in Iraq it is an entirely different story: Iran, not the United States, has become the face of an operation to retake the jihadist stronghold of Falluja from the militant group.

On the outskirts of Falluja, tens of thousands of Iraqi soldiers, police officers and Shiite militiamen backed by Iran are preparing for an assault on the Sunni city, raising fears of a sectarian blood bath

But the United States has long believed that Iran’s role, which relies on militias accused of sectarian abuses, can make matters worse by angering Sunnis and making them more sympathetic to the militants.

Iraqi troops retake key town from ISIS in Falluja offensive

Iraqi security forces and supporting militias have retaken the key town of Karma from ISIS, the government's first significant victory

The United Nations said it fears an estimated 50,000 civilians trapped in Falluja ahead of the government advance are at extreme risk.

A Commonwealth in Crisis

On Sunday, Puerto Rico will likely default again on some of its debts, which now total over $70 billion.

It is an entity that is often almost completely at the whim of Congress, the most dysfunctional body in national politics today.

Syria’s divided city of Aleppo plunged back into the kind of all-out war not seen in months on Thursday

At least 27 people, including three children and six staff members,

The escalation also threatened to derail renewed attempts at peace talks in Geneva by the United Nations

REYHANLI, Turkey — When the wounded arrived at the Red Crescent hospital in Idlib at the start of the Syrian uprising — opponents of President Bashar al-Assad who had been shot or beaten by government troops — military police ordered the doctors to just let them die.

Ammar Martini and his colleagues refused.

“This I could not do,” said Martini, a successful surgeon from an affluent family. “I treat all people, of any origin. They are human, and I am a doctor.”

With progress toward a transitional government highly unlikely, the conference will now focus as much on the humanitarian crisis as it will on discussions about Syria's political future.

the United Nations on Monday withdrew an invitation to Iran to attend the much-anticipated Syria peace conference, reversing a decision announced a day earlier.

Under intense American pressure, the United Nations on Monday withdrew an invitation to Iran to attend the much-anticipated Syria peace conference, reversing a decision announced a day earlier.

The United States had said it was surprised by the invitation because Iran had not agreed to conditions for the talks, to be held on Wednesday in Montreux, Switzerland.