Spotlight
The deposed leader of Turkey's main opposition party on Friday formed a new political party to challenge President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, months after he was removed from his post by a court order that his supporters slammed as a political move to weaken the opposition.
Ozgur Ozel and 90 other legislators formally resigned from the Republican People's Party, or CHP, and then registered the new political party — named the "New Party" — with the Interior Ministry.
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China announced on Friday it was adding 14 European entities to an export control list in retaliation for the European Union penalizing 14 Chinese enterprises as part of its latest round of sanctions against Russia.
Chinese companies will not be allowed to export dual-use items, which can be used for both civilian and military purposes, to the 14 European organizations, China's Commerce Ministry said in a statement.
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The European Commission on Friday said it found TikTok had not adequately protected children's privacy rights on its platform by allowing adults to view the accounts of minors.
The action exposed children to cyberbullying, unwanted contact and predatory behavior, commission spokesperson Thomas Regnier said.
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A United Nations committee voted Friday to inscribe a major archaeological site in the West Bank and a set of castles in southern Lebanon as World Heritage sites, despite objections from Israel, which had urged the committee to reject the bids.
The decision at a U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization meeting in South Korea came days after Israel's Foreign Ministry urged the committee to reject efforts to designate the small West Bank town of Sebastia and the Lebanese castles, calling the nominations a "weaponization of cultural heritage."
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Germany has hired Jürgen Klopp to coach its national team, giving the ex-Liverpool manager a daunting task to turn around the fortunes of a squad which failed yet again at the World Cup.
He replaces Julian Nagelsmann, who quit after Germany's loss to Paraguay meant it failed to reach the last 16 of a men's World Cup for the third time in a row.
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German Chancellor Friedrich Merz reshuffled top posts on Friday as he tries to boost the fortunes of his deeply unpopular government ahead of regional elections in which a far-right party could get its first state governor.
Merz took office less than 15 months ago with pledges to reform and turn around Germany's economy, Europe's biggest, after years of stagnation. But that economic turnaround has been slow to start. And the middle-of-the-road coalition of Merz's center-right Union bloc and the center-left Social Democrats, two traditional rivals, has yet to persuade voters that it can produce results.
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Spain's government declared a national emergency Friday after multiple wildfires forced the evacuation of some 10,000 people in the central region of Madrid.
The measure means that Spain's interior ministry, which control police and security forces, has taken charge of overseeing the firefighting efforts by Spain's regions.
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Flooding in India's northeastern Assam state has killed at least 50 people and displaced 700,000 after days of heavy monsoon rain that overflowed the Brahmaputra River, officials said Friday.
The river, one of Asia's largest that originates in China's Tibet region and flows about 900 kilometers (560 miles) through Assam, flooded villages, swept away homes and forced nearly 300,000 people into government-run relief camps, officials said.
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The House on Thursday narrowly passed a resolution to halt U.S. military action in Iran, sending a warning to President Donald Trump for the second time as the war has escalated and the future of the conflict is increasingly uncertain.
The 214-208 vote requiring congressional approval for the war came just before the Senate narrowly rejected a similar resolution, 47-49. Though the votes forced by Democrats are largely symbolic, they are meant as a signal to the Republican president that his support on Capitol Hill is chipping away as the war drags on and lawmakers in both parties have questioned his administration's endgame.
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President Donald Trump is going ahead with new double-digit tariffs on dozens of U.S. trading partners just as the clock runs out Friday on stopgap levies he imposed after a stinging defeat at the Supreme Court.
The United States will slap taxes of 10% to 12.5% on imports from 60 trading partners accounting for 99% of U.S. imports, charging that they have inadequately enforced bans on goods produced by forced labor.
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