AFP, United Nations
US President-elect Donald Trump has agreed to hold a first face-to-face meeting with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, the UN spokesman said Wednesday.
“They agreed to meet,” UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said, adding that no firm date had been set for the talks.
Ban told AFP in an interview on Friday that he was hoping to meet Trump before he ends his tenure as UN chief on December 31.
Obama to meet Merkel in Germany
AP, Berlin
President Barack Obama is stressing a message of solidarity on his final visit to Germany – a top trade partner, key NATO ally and home to thousands of American troops, as well as a nation critical to solving Europe’s migrant crisis and debt woes. Obama arrived Wednesday night in Berlin from Greece, making his sixth and final visit as president to Germany, where he has been popular since even before he was elected.
IS killed 300 Iraqi policemen: HRW
Reuters, Baghdad
Islamic State militants probably killed more than 300 Iraqi former police three weeks ago and buried them in a mass grave near the town of Hammam al-Alil south of Mosul, Human Rights Watch said on Thursday. A Reuters reporter visited the site of the mass grave, where residents said the ultra-hardline militants buried victims who had been shot or beheaded. The residents said they believed up to 200 people were killed in the weeks before Islamic State withdrew from the town.
German to continue military mission in Afghanistan
Reuters, Berlin
Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cabinet on Wednesday approved the continuation of Germany’s deployment of up to 980 soldiers to Afghanistan through the end of 2017, a government spokesman said. The decision, which must still be approved by parliament, came less than a week after armed Taliban militants stormed the German consulate in the northern Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif and killed at least four Afghans and wounded more than 100 people.
