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China has demanded that Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan retract his accusation that Beijing practised genocide against ethnic Uighurs. Mr Erdogan made the comments after riots in the Muslim Uighur heartland of Xinjiang in which 184 people died. Xinjiang's capital, Urumqi, is under heavy police and military control. UK-based analysts say al-Qaeda-linked militants in Algeria have called for reprisals against Chinese workers in the wake of the violence. China's rejection of Mr Erdogan's remarks came in an editorial headlined "Don't twist facts" in the English-language newspaper China Daily. It said the fact that 137 of the 184 victims of...

In late November 2012, while Matteo Renzi was making an ill-fated bid for leadership of the Italian centre-left, a young MP from his Democratic Party (PD) piped up on Twitter to remark: "OK, Renzi has quite a lot to learn about foreign policy … He won't make the pass mark, I fear #thirdgrade." When he won the PD primaries the following winter, Renzi – canny as ever – hired his sharp-tongued critic as the party's spokesperson on Europe and international affairs. Once prime minister, he ushered her into the top job at Italy's foreign office. Now, the shoe is firmly...

Syrian rebel groups strengthened their hold over the Syrian side of the Quneitra Crossing — located on the frontier between Syrian and Israeli controlled parts of the Golan Heights – over the weekend and managed to repel attacks by Syrian forces loyal to President Bashar Assad. The rebels kidnapped dozens of Fiji soldiers, members of the UN observer force stationed in the Golan Heights and are maintaining a siege on a second UN stronghold manned by Philippine soldiers. ... Nusra Front forces took over a stronghold manned by a Fiji UN force and kidnapped the soldiers stationed there at gunpoint,...

European Union leaders on Saturday picked Italian Foreign Minister Federica Mogherini, to become the 28-nation bloc’s top diplomat for the next five years. The decision comes as the crisis at the EU’s eastern border pitting Ukraine against Russia poses one of the biggest foreign policy challenges for the bloc in decades. […] Mogherini, a 41-year-old center-left politician, has been Italy’s foreign minister only since February, drawing criticism that she lacks experience. A first attempt to secure Mogherini’s nomination in June failed amid resistance from eastern European leaders. …

TEHRAN (FNA)- Dutch Foreign Minister Evo Opstelten announced that his country plans to withdraw the nationality from the "jihadist" fighters who have joined terrorist groups, even without prior judiciary condemnation. The local authorities announced that around 130 Dutch Salafi Takfiri militants have joined the terrorist groups in Syria as well as Iraq and that 30 of them returned home, while 14 others were killed, Al-Manar reported. According to the Dutch intelligence services, at least two Dutch Salafi Takfiri militants carried out suicide bombings in Syria and Iraq.

Over and over again — throughout the entirety of my adult life, or so it feels — I have been shown Polish photographs from the beautiful summer of 1939: The children playing in the sunshine, the fashionable women on Krakow streets. I have even seen a picture of a family wedding that took place in June 1939, in the garden of a Polish country house I now own. All of these pictures convey a sense of doom, for we know what happened next. September 1939 brought invasion from both east and west, occupation, chaos, destruction, genocide. Most of the people...

Putin has invaded Ukraine. Is it hysterical to prepare for total war with Russia? Or is it naive not to? WARSAW, Poland—Over and over again—throughout the entirety of my adult life, or so it feels—I have been shown Polish photographs from the beautiful summer of 1939: The children playing in the sunshine, the fashionable women on Krakow streets. I have even seen a picture of a family wedding that took place in June 1939, in the garden of a Polish country house I now own. All of these pictures convey a sense of doom, for we know what happened next....

Moscow says it will take steps to respond if NATO begins regular troop rotations in the easternmost NATO-member countries. Russia's permanent mission to NATO said via Twitter on August 27 that Russia's reaction would be "with a view to ensure its security." The remarks come after NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen announced the troop rotations for NATO's eastern members in an interview published on August 26 by Britain's "The Guardian" newspaper. Rasmussen said the troops rotations would be carried out at "very high frequency" so that "any potential aggressor" would know an attack on the NATO host country would...

Aug 29 (Reuters) - Seven NATO allies plan to create a new rapid reaction force of at least 10,000 soldiers as part of plans to boost NATO defences in response to Russia's intervention in Ukraine, the Financial Times reported on Friday.

(Reuters) - Polish President Bronis law Komorowski said that Vladimir Putin is trying to build a new Russian empire for Moscow and that the region now had to choose whether it wanted "a Cossack Europe or a democratic one".

Finnish defence forces announced on Saturday that they are to conduct an unusually large-scale military exercise close to the Russian border next summer. Up to 8,000 reservist troops from all regiments will take part in training in the border district of Pielinen Karelia in June 2015. Major Markku Vääntänen said military exercises on this scale are only organised in the region about once every ten years. The training will be the defence forces' principal exercise event next year.

Ukraine's prime minister has said he will ask parliament to put the country on a path towards Nato membership. Arseny Yatsenyuk said the government was sending a bill to MPs urging that Ukraine's non-bloc status be cancelled. The remarks come as Nato holds an emergency meeting to discuss the crisis in eastern Ukraine. The West has stepped up its accusations of direct Russian involvement in the conflict, following advances by pro-Russian rebels. On Thursday Nato released satellite images it said showed Russian forces inside Ukraine. and said more than 1,000 troops were operating there.

Vladimir Putin's expansionist urges Yesterday, Ukrainian President Petro O. Poroshenko declared that Russia had invaded his nation. Col. Andriy Lysenko, spokesman for the Ukrainian military, confirmed that two armored columns of Russian forces, replete with tanks and armored fighting vehicles, captured the town of Novoazovsk on the Sea of Azov near the Russian border. Ukrainian troops were forced to retreat in the face of superior fighting power that included Grad missiles launched from Russian territory. “Our border servicemen and guardsmen retreated as they did not have heavy equipment,” Lysenko said in a statement. NATO released a series of satellite images...

NATO released a series of satellite images: "Russian combat soldiers, equipped with heavy weaponry ... operating inside Ukraine’s sovereign territory." NATO website, the photos "confirmed what NATO and its Allies had been seeing for weeks from other sources." This is a direct contradiction of statements made by Kremlin officials and a pro-Russian separatist leader all of the Russian troops who had entered the country were on "their vacations" and assisting the separatists on a volunteer basis. Tak said indicated "substantial numbers of Russian combat troops inside Ukraine" as well as "large quantities of advanced weapons, including air defense systems, artillery,...

This handout picture from the Finnish Air Force taken Thursday shows a Russian AN-72 transport plane, taken by a Finnish aircraft pilot. Finland's Defense Ministry said it suspects a Russian military aircraft on Thursday violated Finnish airspace — the third such incident in six days. Ministry spokesman Max Arhippainen told The Associated Press that a Russian AN-72 transport plane is believed to have crossed into the Nordic country's airspace over the Gulf of Finland for a few minutes. (Finnish Air Force/Lehtikuva via AP) Finland's Defense Ministry said it suspects a Russian military aircraft on Thursday violated Finnish airspace — the...

US military bolstering its arsenal of weapons in Norway’s caves   This 1997 aerial photograph shows the entrance to a cave facility the US military uses in the Trondheim region of central Norway.     The United States is adding massive amounts of new tanks and armored vehicles to its arsenal of weapons inside a series of climate-controlled caves in central Norway, according to Pentagon officials. The caves in the Norwegian countryside are part of the Marine Corps’ global prepositioning program, The Washington Post reported on Tuesday. The rarely discussed program began during the Cold War as a way...

Islamic State extremists are pushing to secure the border between Turkey and north-western Syria as the main gateway for recruits to join the caliphate they have imposed across much of eastern Syria and western Iraq. Large numbers of jihadists from Islamic State (formerly Isis) are moving this weekend towards the Turkish border area, about 60 miles north of Aleppo, in columns of armoured trucks that they looted from abandoned Iraqi military bases. The area is now one of the most active front lines in the group's attempt to redraw the borders of the Levant, a campaign that will have huge...

Lithuanian diplomat 'murdered in eastern Ukraine' Lithiuania's honorary consul in eastern Ukraine has been murdered by rebels, according to the country's foreign minister. The diplomat was said to have been kidnapped and "brutally killed" by pro-Russian terrorists.

World NATO says Russian convoy move 'only deepens crisis' BRUSSELS: NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen sharply criticised the Russian decision to advance a "so-called" aid convoy into Ukraine on Friday (Aug 22) as a "blatant breach" of international commitments that "only deepens the crisis". "This is a blatant breach of Russia's international commitments... and a further violation of Ukraine's sovereignty by Russia," Rasmussen said in a statement. "It can only deepen the crisis in the region, which Russia itself has created and has continued to fuel," he said. Rasmussen poured doubt on Moscow's claim that the convoy, which had been...

The Russian military has moved artillery units manned by Russian personnel inside Ukrainian territory in recent days and is using them to fire at Ukrainian forces, NATO officials said on Friday. The West has long accused Russia of supporting the separatist forces in eastern Ukraine, but this is the first time it has said it had evidence of the direct involvement of the Russian military.