Year: 2021

NIAMEY, Niger — A hundred civilians were killed in attacks by suspected militants in the West African nation of Niger on Saturday, according to government officials.

Armed men shot men and boys in what was said to be a revenge attack on the villages of Tchoma Bangou and Zaroumadareye. The villages are in the southwestern region of Tillabéri, where civilians have increasingly come under attack in the past two years.

“They opened fire on everybody,” said Jahafar Koudize, a resident of Tchoma Bangou who managed to escape.

The attack, which came just a week after Niger’s presidential election, is one

CAIRO — Sunset is when the Nile blinks to life in Cairo, the party boats twinkling like Vegas, the couples on the Qasr el-Nil bridge lingering in the breeze, the riverside cafes clinking with commerce long past most cities’ bedtimes.

By 6 a.m., when the rest have gone home, the rowers come out to a Cairo few others know: no traffic, no crowds, little chaos. Even the birds are audible this time of morning, when the city’s battalions of car horns offer only groggy competition and winter fog pales the five-star hotels along the shore. In the boat, the oar

JERUSALEM — Preventive diplomacy, by its nature, does not often lead to splashy headlines for the practitioner.

In his nearly six years as the top United Nations envoy to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Nickolay E. Mladenov worked quietly behind the scenes to help keep the Gaza Strip from boiling over, preserve the possibility of a two-state solution and build support for Israeli-Arab normalization as a vastly preferable alternative to the Israeli annexation of West Bank land.

But he did notch at least one achievement that qualifies as eye-catching: He earned the respect of just about everyone he dealt with, many of

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon has abruptly sent the aircraft carrier Nimitz home from the Middle East and Africa over the objections of top military advisers, marking a reversal of a weekslong muscle-flexing strategy aimed at deterring Iran from attacking American troops and diplomats in the Persian Gulf.

Officials said on Friday that the acting defense secretary, Christopher C. Miller, had ordered the redeployment of the ship in part as a “de-escalatory” signal to Tehran to avoid stumbling into a crisis in President Trump’s waning days in office. American intelligence reports indicate that Iran and its proxies may be preparing a

LONDON — At the ports and terminals on Britain’s southeastern coast, a new era began on Friday morning without much fuss. Ferries and trains that carry goods to France from Dover and Folkestone were running on time, and drivers snaked their trucks into the port unencumbered by congestion.

To all appearances, little may have changed on Jan. 1, the country’s first day outside the European Union’s single market and customs union. It was, after all, a public holiday and not much business was taking place.

But for the first time in over 25 years, goods traveling between Britain and the

First there was Thanksgiving, when some families who gathered for turkey and stuffing also shared the coronavirus, causing cases to spike in some places and further taxing the nation’s already stretched hospitals.

Then there was Christmas weekend, when Americans crowded airports in numbers not seen since the start of the pandemic. Anyone who caught the virus then would probably still be in the incubation phase or just starting to feel symptoms now, so it’s too soon yet to gauge the full impact of people’s Christmas activities.

Now comes New Year’s Eve, an occasion for celebrating in large crowds, often among strangers,