Month: September 2016

German Chancellor Angela Merkel insisted on Saturday that she had not reversed course on her policy on migrants, two weeks after she said she wished she could turn back the clock to better prepare Germany for last year’s influx. Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) suffered electoral routs in two state elections last month as voters rejected her open-door migrant policy just a year ahead of a federal election. Taking some of the blame for her party’s drubbing, Merkel struck a conciliatory tone and said she would if she could “turn back the time by many, many years” to prepare Germany for the influx.

TBILISI, Georgia (AP) — Pope Francis issued a vague rebuke to Russia on Friday and received an unexpectedly warm welcome from the leader of the Georgian Orthodox Church as he mixed geopolitics with religion on the first day of a three-day trip to the Caucasus.

The death of Nobel laureate Shimon Peres led to a surge of nostalgia in Israel over his peace efforts, but his ideals have become increasingly absent from the country’s political scene. The former president and prime minister won the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize for his role in negotiating the Oslo accords with the Palestinians and spent the latter years of his life defending his pursuit of the goals they represented. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government is seen as the most right-wing in Israel’s history, and key members of his coalition say openly that they oppose a Palestinian state.

Shimon Peres, former Israeli president and Nobel Peace Prize winner, was buried on Friday in Jerusalem in the presence of world leaders. Peres was one of the architects of the Oslo peace accords with the Palestinians, reached in 1993 and 1995. Peres was foreign minister under his Labour party rival Yitzhak Rabin.

THILAWA, Myanmar (AP) — Two Chinese naval frigates are paying a port call near Myanmar’s old capital, Yangon.