German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Wednesday she's not happy about the possible demise of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement, which President-elect Donald Trump wants to pull the U.S. out of. She argued that alternative pacts will be a poor substitute.

Merkel didn't mention Trump directly in a speech to the German Parliament in which she called for nations to take a multilateral approach to solving global problems, but made plain her unease at his approach to major trade pacts.

Turkey's president says an upcoming vote in the European Parliament on whether to freeze membership talks with Turkey is of no "value" to his country.

European Union legislators are scheduled to hold a non-binding vote this week on whether Turkey's accession talks should be suspended over the Turkish government's unprecedented crackdown following the failed military coup in July.

Iran's semi-official ISNA news agency is reporting that the country has transferred an amount of its surplus heavy water to Oman for sale.

The late Sunday report quotes Behrouz Kamalvandi, spokesman for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, as saying "In view of the progress of talks with several foreign firms and countries to purchase heavy water, some quantities of Iran's surplus production has been transferred to Oman."

Violence subsided Sunday in Yemen, a day after the beginning of a 48-hour ceasefire declared by the pro-government Arab coalition battling rebel fighters for almost 20 months. 

Iraqi troops faced stiff resistance Saturday from Islamic State militants as they pushed deeper into eastern Mosul, backed by aerial support from the U.S.-led international coalition, a senior military commander said.

At dawn, troops moved into the Muharabeen and Ulama neighborhoods after fully liberating the adjacent Tahrir neighborhood on Friday, said Maj. Gen. Sami al-Aridi of the Iraqi special forces. Al-Aridi said IS militants were fighting back with snipers, rocket-propelled grenades and mortar rounds.

Egypt's President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi has praised U.S. President-elect Donald J. Trump, saying that his inflammatory statements from the campaign trail do not necessarily reflect the actions he will take as president.

El-Sissi, in an interview with Portuguese news agency LUSA released on Saturday, said, "let's not jump into conclusions or worry" about future U.S. actions or policies in the Middle East. The army chief-turned-president was interviewed prior to his upcoming Nov. 21 visit to Portugal.

Syrian opposition activists are reporting heavy bombardment of besieged rebel-held neighborhoods in the northern city of Aleppo saying at least six people have been killed.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Syrian government warplanes and artillery struck more than 20 neighborhoods in east Aleppo killing six people.

President-elect Donald Trump signaled a sharp rightward shift in U.S. national security policy Friday with his announcement that he will nominate Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions as attorney general and Kansas Rep. Mike Pompeo to head the CIA, turning to a pair of staunch conservatives as he begins to fill out his Cabinet.

Trump also named retired Lt. Gen Michael Flynn as his national security adviser. A former military intelligence chief, Flynn has accused the Obama administration of being too soft on terrorism and has cast Islam as a "political ideology" and driver of extremism.

For more than 6 years, Donald Trump fought hard against a civil lawsuit in which former customers of his now-defunct Trump University accused him of fraud. Less than two weeks after being elected president, he agreed to a $25 million settlement.

"We definitely detected a change of tone and change of approach" after the election, plaintiff attorney Jason Forge said when the agreement was announced Friday.

Iraqi troops advanced cautiously into eastern districts of Mosul on Friday, facing stiff resistance from Islamic State militants a day after they paused their assault due to poor visibility, officers said.

Airstrikes, automatic fire and artillery were heard from dawn and one soldier was reported killed in clashes. Civilians, some of them wounded, could be seen fleeing the fighting.