President Rashid emphasized the urgent need for consolidating values of brotherhood and humanity in the region. The Iraqi Presidency issued a statement, highlighting Rashid's stress on the importance of dialogue, cooperation, and collective action among people, recognizing the positive impact of the Holy See's messages in promoting understanding and calm.

President Rashid took the opportunity to showcase Iraq's strides in political and security stability, outlining the country's commitment to comprehensive development. Focus areas included improving citizens' living standards, repairing infrastructure, and driving economic development.

He reiterated Iraq's dedication to democracy, pluralism, and the protection of human rights. Addressing the relationship between the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and the federal government, President Rashid assured a commitment to resolving outstanding issues based on the Iraqi Constitution and the Law.

In a significant move, President Rashid affirmed the government's commitment to the vital role of Christian communities in Iraqi society. He pledged to facilitate the resettlement of Christians, Yezidis, and other indigenous communities in their homes, stating that the Presidency is open to addressing their demands, ensuring livelihoods, and preserving diversity. Furthermore, President Rashid condemned human rights violations in Palestine and the Gaza Strip, urging the international community to intensify efforts to prevent such violations, protect civilians, and facilitate humanitarian assistance.

Pope Francis, in turn, welcomed President Rashid, expressing the Holy See's support for Iraqi efforts in strengthening intercommunity relations and interfaith harmony. The Pope acknowledged the sacrifices made by the Christian community for a prosperous Iraq and underscored the importance of enhancing global peace opportunities.

In recent years, Iraq has stood out in the Middle East as a place where the Christian population has been growing, with the Kurdistan region earning a reputation as a welcoming and friendly place for Christians. The Kurdistan region, in particular, has been recognized as a Christian-friendly area, contributing to the increase in the number of Christians in Iraq. This trend is noteworthy in a region where such growth has been relatively uncommon.

Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed al-Sudani and US President Joe Biden are scheduled to meet on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York in September, the Iraqi newspaper Mada quoted a source close to Washington as saying.

The source added that the meeting will be held on the sidelines of the international meeting due to the complicated situation in Iraq and the Iranian issue.

However, the scheduled meeting between Biden and Sudan has not yet been determined.

A source close to the coordination said Sudani had rejected three invitations to visit Washington, because he was not sure of the US intentions, although he was interested in partnership and coordination with the US.

Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan said it was "disheartening and absolutely unacceptable" that some wealthy countries had not brought their nationals home. 

"To those countries, you must step up, you must take your responsibility," he told a meeting of the international anti-ISIS coalition that was attended by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

The "caliphate", which ISIS proclaimed across swathes of Iraq and Syria in 2014, was declared defeated in 2019 following counter-offensives in both Iraq and Syria.

Thousands of militants and their family members continue to be held in detention canters and informal camps where US commanders have warned they could fuel an IS revival. 

Despite repeated calls for their repatriation, foreign governments have allowed only a trickle to return home, fearing security threats and domestic political backlash.

Blinken applauded countries, including Canada, that have brought home their nationals from Syria, urging other nations to follow suit. 

"Repatriation is critical" to reduce populations of large informal camps such as Syria's Al-Hol, which houses 10,000 foreigners, including ISIS relatives, he said.

"Failure to repatriate foreign fighters risks that they may again take up arms," he told coalition partners, pledging $148.7 million for stabilization efforts for Iraq and Syria.

The anti-ISIS coalition was formed in 2014 following the militants' lightning advance that saw reports of atrocities multiply as they overran non-Muslim as well as Muslim areas.

Despite its territorial defeat, ISIS militants continue to conduct attacks against civilians and security forces in both Iraq and Syria. 

The United Nations estimates that ISIS still has 5,000 to 7,000 loyalists across the two countries, roughly half of whom are fighters.

In April, the US-led coalition reported a significant drop in ISIS attacks in both Iraq and Syria since the start of the year.

ISIS attacks in Iraq dropped by 68 percent through April, while Syria saw a 55 percent decrease during the same period, the coalition said.  

Russian forces had fired a barrage of missiles at Kyiv on Monday, sending panicked residents running for shelter in an unusual daytime attack on the Ukrainian capital following overnight strikes.

"This morning, at dawn, a drone attack caused minor damage to several buildings. All the city's emergency services are on the scene ... No one has been seriously injured so far," Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin said.

Andrei Vorobyov, the governor of the Moscow region, said many drones had been downed near the capital.

"This morning, the residents of certain districts in the Moscow region could hear explosions, it was our anti-air missile defence system," he wrote.

"Several drones were shot down while approaching Moscow," he wrote, urging residents to keep calm and adding that "all rescue services are doing their work".

Moscow, located more than 1,000 kilometres (620 miles) from Ukraine, has only rarely been targeted by drone attacks since the start of the conflict in Ukraine, even though such attacks have become more common elsewhere in Russia.

Images posted on social media showed traces of smoke in the sky. Others showed a broken window.

Sobyanin said the residents of two buildings damaged in Tuesday's strikes had been evacuated and added that they "can return to their apartments once the special services have finished their work".

In early May, two drones were shot down over the Kremlin in an attack blamed on Ukraine.

"Every generation has a moment where they have had to stand up for democracy. To stand up for their fundamental freedoms," Biden wrote on Twitter, along with a video.

"I believe this is ours. That’s why I’m running for re-election as president of the United States. Join us. Let's finish the job."

After a series of big legislative wins and momentous foreign policy struggles in his first two years in office, Biden has no real challenger from within the Democratic Party.

But in a campaign that may result in a rematch of the 2020 election against Donald Trump, he is expected to face constant and fierce scrutiny over his age.

The veteran Democrat would be 86 by the end of a second term. Even if a medical exam in February found him "fit" to execute the duties of the presidency, many including in his own voter base believe he is too old.

An NBC News poll released over the weekend found that 70 percent of Americans, including 51 percent of Democrats, believe he should not run.

Sixty-nine percent of all respondents who said he shouldn't run cited concerns over his age as a major or minor reason.

Biden likes to answer those concerns by saying, "watch me" -- meaning that voters should focus on his policy wins at home and his marshaling of an unprecedented Western alliance to help Ukraine defend itself against Russia's invasion.

Over the next year and a half, Biden will have all the advantages of incumbency, backed by a united party, while Republicans are only just starting a messy primary season.

Trump, despite becoming the first former or serving president to be criminally indicted -- and facing probes into his attempt to overturn his loss to Biden in the 2020 election -- is the overwhelming Republican frontrunner.

On Monday, Trump was quick to pitch in his own criticism of the man who defeated him last time around.

"With such a calamitous and failed presidency, it is almost inconceivable that Biden would even think of running for reelection," he said in a statement.

The most likely Republican challenger to the 76-year-old Trump, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, presents a similarly right-wing figure, though starkly younger at 44.


- 'Rebuilding the middle class' -


Biden will underline his foreign policy credentials Tuesday when he meets with South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, who is starting a state visit to the White House.

Like in 2020, Biden's video message framed his election bid as a fight to save American democracy from Trump and increasingly far-right Republicans. However, he also stressed his message of restoring an economy with heavy focus on the manufacturing base and jobs for the middle class.

Later Tuesday he was scheduled to deliver an economic address to a union conference being held in Washington.

While not a campaign event, the scheduled theme -- "how his investing in America agenda is bringing manufacturing back, rebuilding the middle class, and creating good-paying union jobs" -- was set to be at the heart of the Democrat's 2024 message.


- Bland but comforting? -


Biden's approval ratings have not topped 50 percent for more than a year and a half. 

However, he has consistently over-delivered when it matters. Supporters say the Democratic Party's surprisingly strong performance in 2022 midterm congressional elections validated the Biden brand.

And while Biden may seem bland in comparison to Trump, he would bank on his moderate, old fashioned image being the secret weapon needed in an increasingly extreme era.

"My dad had an expression," Biden often says. "'Joey, don't compare me to the Almighty. Compare me to the alternative.'"

CENTCOM's statement gave no details of where in Syria the strike was carried out on Monday but said "no civilians were killed or injured."

"Though degraded", the jihadist group, which was ousted from its last territory in Syria in 2019, "remains able to conduct operations within the region with a desire to strike beyond the Middle East," said CENTCOM chief General Michael Kurilla.

Jabouri also "developed the leadership structure for ISIS" and his death will "temporarily disrupt the organization's ability to plot external attacks," CENTCOM said.

ISIS has claimed a number of deadly attack in Europe in recent years, including a November 2015 attack in Paris and its suburbs that killed 130 people and another attack in the French city of Nice in July 2016 that killed 86 people.

Some 900 US troops remain in Syria, most in the Kurdish-ruled northeast, as part of a US-led coalition battling remnants of ISIS who remain active in both Syria and neighboring Iraq, operating out of hideouts in desert and mountain area.

In October 2019, Washington announced it had killed ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in an operation in northwestern Syria.

A last-ditch deal aimed at averting a split of the opposition vote will see CHP chief Kemal Kilicdaroglu name the popular mayors of Istanbul and Ankara as vice presidents should he end Erdogan's two-decade rule.

"We would have been eliminated had we split up," Kilicdaroglu told huge crowds of cheering supporters after emerging from hours of tense talks.

Erdogan faces the fight of his political life in what many view as Turkey's most consequential election since its birth as a post-Ottoman republic 100 years ago.

The 68-year-old leader needs to overcome the twin hurdles of an economic crisis and that aftermath of a devastating earthquake as he seeks to extend his Islamic style of rule until 2028.

Opinion polls point to a tight race that remains far too close to call.

But Erdogan's task had appeared to become a little easier when one of the main leaders of the six-party opposition alliance walked out of the talks on Friday.

More buildings collapsed, trapping some people, while scores of injuries were recorded in neighboring Syria too.

Monday’s earthquake was centred in the town of Defne, in Turkey’s Hatay province, one the worst-hit regions in the magnitude 7.8 quake that struck on February 6.

It was felt in Syria, Jordan, Cyprus, Israel and as far away as Egypt, and followed by a second, magnitude 5.8 temblor.

Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said eight people were killed and 294 injured. Search and rescue efforts were underway in three collapsed buildings where six people were believed trapped.

In Hatay, police rescued one person trapped inside a three-story building and were trying to reach three others inside, HaberTurk television reported.

It said those trapped included movers helping people shift furniture and other belongings from the building that was damaged in the massive quake.

The death toll from Monday’s quakes stood at 28,191 — with another 80,000-plus injured — as of Sunday morning and was certain to rise as bodies kept emerging.

As despair also bred rage at the agonizingly slow rescue efforts, the focus turned to who was to blame for not better preparing people in the earthquake-prone region that includes an area of Syria that was already suffering from years of civil war.

Even though Turkey has, on paper, construction codes that meet current earthquake-engineering standards, they are too rarely enforced, explaining why thousands of buildings slumped onto their side or pancaked downward onto residents.

Turkish Vice President Fuat Oktay said late on Saturday that warrants have been issued for the detention of 131 people suspected to being responsible for collapsed buildings.

Turkey’s justice minister has vowed to punish anyone responsible, and prosecutors have begun gathering samples of buildings for evidence on materials used in constructions. The quakes were powerful, but victims, experts and people across Turkey are blaming bad construction for multiplying the devastation.

Authorities at Istanbul Airport on Sunday detained two contractors held responsible for the destruction of several buildings in Adiyaman, the private DHA news agency and other media reported. The pair were reportedly on their way to Georgia.

Two more people were arrested in the province of Gaziantep suspected of having cut down columns to make extra room in a building that collapsed, the state-run Anadolu Agency said

A day earlier, Turkey’s Justice Ministry announced the planned establishment of “Earthquake Crimes Investigation” bureaus. The bureaus would aim to identify contractors and others responsible for building works, gather evidence, instruct experts including architects, geologists and engineers, and check building permits and occupation permits.

A building contractor was detained by authorities on Friday at Istanbul airport before he could board a flight out of the country. He was the contractor of a luxury 12-story building in the historic city of Antakya, in Hatay province, the collapse of which left an untold number of dead.

The detentions could help direct public anger toward builders and contractors, deflecting attention away from local and state officials who allowed the apparently sub-standard constructions to go ahead. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government, already burdened by an economic downturn and high inflation, faces parliamentary and presidential elections in May.

Survivors, many of whom lost loved ones, have turned their frustration and anger also at authorities. Rescue crews have been overwhelmed by the widespread damage which has impacted roads and airports, making it even more difficult to race against the clock.

Polling is likely to be held on May 14.

In a ceremony in Ankara on Monday, the six parties presented their joint 240-page program for a post-victory Turkey, but did not name their joint candidate to run against Erdogan.

Erdogan, who has been in office since 2003 — first as prime minister and as president since 2014 — introduced a presidential system in 2018 that abolished the office of the prime minister and concentrated most powers in the hands of the president.

The office of the president had been a largely ceremonial post until then.

The opposition has blamed Turkey’s woes, including an economic downturn and an erosion of rights and freedoms, on Erdogan’s system which they say amounts to a “one-man rule.”

The presidential system was narrowly approved in a 2017 referendum and was installed following elections in 2018.

The six parties -- known as the “Nation Alliance” or the “Table of Six” — have been meeting for the past year to come up with a joint plan to beat Erdogan and chart a return to a more democratic system.

The six parties’ failure to nominate a joint candidate to run against Erdogan has however, led to frustration among opposition supporters.

CHP leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu has suggested he wants to run despite the significant popularity of the mayors of Istanbul and Ankara, who managed to oust Erdogan’s ruling party in local elections in 2019.

The longtime Turkish leader has seen a decline in support due to economic instability and surging inflation but has been engaged in a spending spree, including increases in minimum wages and retirement benefits, to win back votes.

On foreign policy issues, the six parties vowed to “work to complete the accession process” for full membership in the European Union, improve strained ties with the United States “based on mutual trust,” and strive to return to the U.S.-led F-35 fighter jet program.

Turkey was kicked out of the project following the Erdogan government’s purchase of Russian-made missile defense systems.

In addition to Kilicdaroglu’s CHP, the opposition alliance is made of Meral Aksener’s nationalist Good Party; Temel Karamollaoglu’s conservative Felicity Party; Gultekin Uysal’s Democrat Party; The Democracy and Progress Party led by Ali Babacan; and Future Party chaired by Ahmet Davutoglu.

Davutoglu and Babacan were co-founders of Erdogan’s ruling party and served in top positions before breaking away from the movement in criticism of Erdogan’s policies.

Excluded from the alliance is the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party, which is the second largest opposition party.

That party is facing closure following a severe crackdown by the government for alleged links to outlawed Kurdish militant groups.

The latest group was made up of 32 minors and 15 adult women, the national counterterrorism prosecutor’s office said. It said the women, aged 19 to 56, were held in custody — some on the basis of arrest warrants previously issued against them. The children were placed in the care of protective services.

France has brought home women and children from camps in northeastern Syria in successive waves since the territorial defeat of ISIS in 2019.

Many European countries were slow to allow the return of women and children from areas where ISIS operated for fear they would violently turn on their homelands.

France saw more of its citizens join ISIS in Syria than any other European country and has been especially wary about having them back.

Iraqi President Dr. Latif Rashid tweeted today, "We deplore and condemn in the strongest terms the criminal attack that targeted a Kurdish cultural center in Paris, which resulted in the fall of a number of innocent victims."

He added, "We call on the French government to expedite the arrest of the perpetrators and bring them to justice," stressing "the importance of combating racism in France to prevent the recurrence of such unfortunate incidents."

A gunman opened fire at Ahmet Kaya Kurdish Cultural Centre in Paris, killing three people and injuring three others. Many Kurdish activists reside in France and have survived or died in numerous assassination attempts.

In 2013, a gunman shot three Kurdish women activists, including a co-founder of the militant nationalist PKK, in a Kurdish information center in Paris.

In celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ, the Iraqi First Lady wishes Iraq and all Christians a happy holiday and a prosperous new year.

"I visited the Church of St. Joseph in Baghdad today and congratulated Cardinal Louis Raphael Sako, Patriarch of the Chaldean and Catholic Churches in the world and Iraq, and the Christian brothers and sisters in Baghdad on the occasion of Christman," the first lady said in a statement. 

"Christians have always had a special place in our hearts. "Coexistence between different nationalities, religions, beliefs, and communities is one of the beautiful characteristics of our country." The first lady also gifted the children at the church and wished them all the best. 

Cardinal Louis Sako expressed his gratitude to the Iraqi First Lady for her continued support for Christians, saying, "the Iraqi First Lady's visit to their cathedral had made them extremely happy."

Christians make up the many minority groups living in Iraq; however, in recent years, their number has decreased to war and instability, and many are migrating to Europe. 

Greek-based journalist Ranj Pishdari, told KurdSat English that one of the survivors of the yacht that sank five days ago in Greek waters, a Kurdish boy, had told him today, authorities in Greece has put him behind bars.

On November 2, a yacht sailing illegally from Turkey to Greece, with 73 passengers on board, sank between Evia and Andros islands, as it waited for help following engine failure. Only 12 survived, 26 bodies were recovered while the fate of the rest remains unknown.

Greece based journalist, Ranj Pishdari told Kurdsat English that 26 migrants that lost their lives in the boat capsize, have been found so far. One of the bodies was identified by his relatives as a 41-year-old man named Zana Qadir, a resident of Piramagroon in Kurdistan region. Zana Qadir was married and left three children behind.

On the morning of November 3, 2022, a yacht with 72 passengers, sailing from Turkey to Greece sank between Evia and Andros islands, as it waited for help following engine failure. Turkish navy rescued 9 passengers after the boat went under water.  So far, twelve migrants have been rescued and the bodies of 26 have been recovered. The fate of 32 others remains unknown.

More than 1,300 migrants have died in the Mediterranean and Northwest Africa since the beginning of 2022, according to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR).