World

Donald Trump signed a memorandum on Friday directing the US military not to accept transgender men and women as recruits and halting the use of government funds for sex-reassignment surgeries for active personnel unless the process is already under way.

Safety in China's nuclear industry has become increasingly important as it seeks to increase exports of its nuclear technologies.

Harvey, the most powerful hurricane to strike Texas in more than 50 years, first hit land late on Friday and has killed at least two people.

The White House official said the US doesn’t expect things to change overnight but hopes for incremental changes from Pakistan over time.

Pakistan Foreign Minister Khawaja Asif said a lot of government officials were involved in the release of Davis but asked the house to resist from initiating a debate as it would only bring "embarrassment".

The memo, released by the White House, laid out in more detail a ban on transgender individuals serving in the US armed forces that Donald Trump announced via Twitter last month.

The report in Le Point news magazine prompted harsh criticism of the president from French social media users. It said the cost includes the pay of a freelance makeup artist following Macron during television appearances and trips abroad.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitor, said the jihadist group had recaptured large swathes of territory from government forces in the fighting on Thursday.

The fighting - still going on in some areas - marked a major escalation in a simmering conflict in the northwestern state since last October, when similar attacks prompted a big military sweep beset by allegations of serious rights abuses.

Zeidan was prime minister from 2012-2014, a period when Libya slid deeper into the political turmoil and armed conflict that has plagued the country since Muammar Gaddafi was overthrown six years ago.

"We were on a small stage and no matter where I walked, he followed me closely, staring at me, making faces. He was literally breathing down my neck. My skin crawled," Clinton said.

A woman was killed in Casamicciola, in the north of the small tourist island, hit by debris that fell from a church, with the body of another spotted in the rubble of a collapsed house, local media reported.

The jihadist threat has risen since 2016, when Islamist websites named as a target "Al Andalus" — the name of Spanish territories governed until 1492 by Muslims better known as Moors.

Neighbours who watched them grow up in the quiet mountain town of Ripoll, set beneath the Pyrenees and ringed by forested hills, said they showed no sign of radicalisation.

Tal Afar is located 70 kilometres west of Mosul, where US-backed government forces ended jihadist rule in July after a months-long battle.

The biennial Summer Universiade, dubbed the "Little Olympics," is the largest ever sporting event Taipei hosts but it has also highlighted tensions with Beijing and the island's struggle for international recognition.