Egypt Today’s morning international news

CAIRO – 4 November 2017: Catalan crisis, U.S. Trump's tour in Asia, and Islamic State group's defeat in Syria are main international issues over the last 24 hours; here is our daily news digest.

Venezuela opposition coalition split ahead of new vote

One of Venezuela's major opposition parties has decided to run in local elections next month despite a boycott by others, deepening a split in the Democratic Unity coalition to the glee of President Nicolas Maduro and his ruling Socialist Party. Three of the four main groupings in the coalition have vowed not to participate in the Dec. 10 balloting for 335 mayors and one governor because they believe the election system is rigged.


FILE PHOTO: Former Venezuelan presidential candidate Manuel Rosales (C) walks next to supporters after being released outside the courthouse in Caracas, Venezuela January 4, 2017. REUTERS/Marco Bello

Spain issues arrest warrant for ousted Catalan leader

Spain on Friday issued an arrest warrant on sedition and other charges against Carles Puigdemont, tightening the judicial net around the former Catalan leader who went Brussels after his government was sacked over a declaration of independence. A Madrid High Court judge asked Belgium to arrest Puigdemont and four associates after they ignored a court order to return to Spain on Thursday to answer charges of rebellion, sedition, misuse of public funds, disobedience and breach of trust relating to their secessionist campaign.


Sacked Catalan President Carles Puigdemont makes a statement in this still image from video calling for the release of "the legitimate government of Catalonia", after a Spanish judge ordered nine Catalan secessionist leaders to be held in custody pending a potential trial over the region's independence push, in Brussels, Belgium, November 2, 2017. TV3 via REUTERS

Trump, dogged at home, heads on longest presidential Asia trip in years

Beset by challenges at home, President Donald Trump on Friday embarked on the longest trip to Asia by an American president in more than a quarter century, looking for help to pressure North Korea to stand down from a nuclear crisis. Trump's tour of Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines from Friday to Nov. 14 will take him out of Washington, where he has been beset by several issues.


U.S. President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump greet visitors as they depart the White House for Asia, in Washington D.C., U.S. November 3, 2017. REUTERS/Carlos Barria

Islamic State on verge of defeat after fresh losses in Syria, Iraq

Islamic State's self-proclaimed caliphate was on the verge of final defeat on Friday, with Syrian government forces capturing its last major city on one side of the border and Iraqi forces taking its last substantial town on the other. The losses on either side of the frontier appear to reduce the caliphate that once ruled over millions of people to a single Syrian border town, a village on a bank of the Euphrates in Iraq and some patches of nearby desert.


Shi'ite Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) fighters fire a cannon against Islamic State militants in Al-Qaim, Iraq November 3, 2017. REUTERS/Stringer


U.S. says Turkish gold trader facing Iran trial invoked Erdogan ties

A wealthy Turkish gold trader charged in the United States with violating U.S. sanctions against Iran sought support from and invoked the name of Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan to advance his business, U.S. prosecutors said. The allegations against the trader, Reza Zarrab, had been detailed in a Monday federal court filing in Manhattan, but the Turkish lira fell more than 1 percent against the U.S. dollar after Bloomberg News reported the filing on Friday.


president Recep Tayyip Erdogan - Press Photo

Argentine survivor of New York attack pleads for justice, love

"What has the world turned in to?" a friend of the five Argentines killed in the New York attack this week asked at a news conference on Friday, alongside three other surviving members of a group of former classmates. Guillermo Banchini, an architect, and friends were cycling in New York during a 30-year high school reunion trip on Tuesday when a driver of a pickup truck plowed down a bike path.


Professor Ricardo Berlot, who was a teacher of the five Argentine citizens of Rosario who were killed, reacts as he talks to journalists outside the Instituto Politecnico in Rosario, Argentina. REUTERS/Stringer

Canada imposes sanctions on 30 Russians over death of lawyer

Canada imposed sanctions on Friday against 30 Russian officials whom it said were complicit in the 2009 prison death of Sergei Magnitsky, an anti-corruption lawyer who was jailed after alleging a massive tax fraud. The measures -- which freeze the assets of the officials and bar them from visiting Canada -- were enacted through a new law giving the government the right to penalize those it says are guilty of human rights violations, the foreign ministry said in a statement.


FILE PHOTO: A picture of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky is seen on his grave in the Preobrazhensky cemetery in Moscow March 11, 2013. REUTERS/Mikhail Voskresensky