North America

California faces historic power outage due to fire danger

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Millions of people were poised to lose electricity throughout northern and central California after Pacific Gas & Electric Co. announced Tuesday it would shut off power in the largest preventive outage in state history to try to avert wildfires caused by faulty lines.

Trump shifts tone on Turkey in effort to halt Syria invasion

WASHINGTON (AP) — In a span of 24 hours, President Donald Trump moved from threatening to obliterate Turkey’s economy if it invades Syria to inviting its president to visit the White House.

But Trump did not back away Tuesday from a plan to withdraw American troops from Syria as he tried to persuade Turkey not to invade the country and attack the U.S.-allied Kurds — a needle-threading strategy that has angered Republican and Democratic lawmakers and confused U.S. allies.

“This is really dangerous,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said.

White House vows total halt to impeachment probe cooperation

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House declared Tuesday it will halt any and all cooperation with what it termed the “illegitimate” impeachment probe by House Democrats, sharpening the constitutional clash between President Donald Trump and Congress.

Trump attorneys sent a lengthy letter to House leaders bluntly stating White House refusal to participate in the inquiry that was given a boost by last week’s release of a whistleblower’s complaint that the president sought political favors from Ukraine.

Dangerous nationalism’ seriously threatens efforts to tackle statelessness: UNHCR chief

UNITED NATIONS, Oct 08 (APP): Hate speech and misguided nationalism present a serious threat to efforts to tackle statelessness, despite growing public awareness of the problem, UN refugee chief Filippo Grandi said Monday.

Speaking at a meeting in Geneva aiming to convince more countries to assist the many millions of people around the world who live in nationless limbo, Grandi warned that much more action was needed, five years since UNHCR launched its #IBelong campaign to end statelessness.

Trump to hold talks with Turkey’s Erdogan in US on November 13

WASHINGTON, October 8. /TASS/: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will arrive in the United States and hold talks with US leader Donald Trump, the US president said via Twitter on Tuesday.

"He [Erdogan] is coming to the U.S. as my guest on November 13th," Trump wrote. He also praised the importance of US-Turkish relations, calling Ankara "a big trading partner of the United States."

Want to bring back US forces engaged in endless wars: Trump

Washington, Oct 8 (PTI) US President Donald Trump has said that he wants to bring back American forces engaged in the endless wars, emphasising that it was one of the promises he made during his 2016 Presidential campaign.

"We want to bring our troops back home. It's been many many years. It's been decades, in many cases. We want to bring our troops back home. I got elected on that. If you go back and look at our speeches, I would say we want to bring our troops back home from these endless wars," Trump told reporters at the White House on Monday.

'Buckle up': Abrupt Syria policy shift is sign of Trump unchained

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Over the span of just a few hours, U.S. President Donald Trump upended his own policy on Syria with a chaotic series of pronouncements, blindsiding foreign allies, catching senior Republican supporters off guard and sending aides scrambling to control the damage.

Trump threatens to ‘obliterate’ Turkish economy if Turkey goes “off limits” over Syria border

WASHINGTON, Oct 8 (NNN-AGENCIES) — President Donald Trump has threatened to destroy Turkey’s economy if Turkey goes “off limits” after his surprise decision to pull US forces out of north-eastern Syria.

In a series of angry tweets, Trump defended the move that could open the way for Turkey to launch an attack on Kurdish fighters across the border.

The withdrawal was heavily criticised even by Trump’s Republican allies.

Kurdish forces were key US allies in defeating the Daesh in Syria.

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