US ‘subsidizing’ Saudi, Asia
militaries: Trump
AFP, Wheeling
President Donald Trump on Saturday complained that the US is “subsidizing” the military of Middle East ally Saudi Arabia, as well as Japan and South Korea.
The comment, at a West Virginia rally for local candidates of his Republican Party, follows similar jibes at European members of the NATO alliance.
UN envoy says hard to hold Libya polls in December
AFP, Tripoli
The UN envoy to Libya told AFP that it will be difficult to hold elections as hoped on December 10, following a new wave of fighting in the North African nation. “There is still a lot to do. It may not be possible to respect the date of December 10,” Ghassan Salame said in an interview.
Rival Libyan leaders agreed to a Paris-brokered deal in May to hold a nationwide poll by the end of the year.
Two Mississippi police officers killed
Reuters, Mississippi
Two police officers were shot and killed in a southern Mississippi town during a gunfight with a 25-year-old man before dawn on Saturday, officials said.
The officers from Brookhaven, less than 60 miles (100 km) south of Jackson, had gone to a house to respond to a report that shots had been fired, Mississippi Department of Public Safety spokesman Warren Strain said in an email.
Iraqi Kurds vote in regional election
Reuters, Erbil
Kurds voted in a parliamentary election in their semi-autonomous region in northern Iraq on Sunday, with the two dominant parties widely expected to extend their power sharing rule despite growing discontent.
The poll comes a year after the region of six million made a failed bid to break away from the rest of Iraq in a campaign headed by Masoud Barzani, leader of the Kurdistan Demo-cratic Party (KDP).
US wants death penalty for NY truck attack suspect
AFP, New York
US federal prosecutors on Friday signaled their intention to seek the death penalty against the Uzbek immigrant accused of killing eight people in a New York truck rampage, should he be convicted at trial. Sayfullo Saipov, 30, allegedly drove a rented pickup truck down a mile-long stretch of bike path in Manhattan as children and their parents prepared to celebrate Halloween on October 31, 2017.
Afghan troops kill 20
militants
Xinhua, Kabul
The Afghan army waged a cleanup operation and killed 20 Taliban militants in the country’s southern province of Helmand, the Afghan Defense Ministry said on Sunday.
“The operation was conducted recently in Nahri Sarraj district and 22 suspected militants were also arrested,” the ministry said in a statement.
