International Glance
The Obama administration struck back at Russia on Thursday for its efforts to influence the 2016 election, ejecting 35 Russian intelligence operatives from the United States and imposing sanctions on Russia’s two leading intelligence services, including four top officers of the military intelligence unit the White House believes ordered the attacks on the Democratic National Committee and other political organizations.
In a sweeping set of announcements, the United States was also expected to release evidence linking the cyberattacks to computer systems used by Russian intelligence. Taken together, the actions would amount to the strongest American response ever taken to a state-sponsored cyberattack aimed at the United States.
Syrian government forces renewed shelling on the last holdouts of rebel-held eastern Aleppo, raising fears that a deal to evacuate civilians and fighters from the devastated city may not be honoured.
Tens of thousands of people are being evacuated as wildfires rage through parts of Israel's third largest city of Haifa.
A suicide bomber has blown himself up inside a Shia mosque in the Afghan capital Kabul, killing at least 27 people and wounding dozens of others.
A local official from Turkey's ruling party has been shot and killed in the country's southeastern region, where Kurdish fighters affiliated with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) operate.
