By Patricia Zengerle
WASHINGTON, Dec 17 (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate voted overwhelmingly on Wednesday to advance a $901 billion bill setting policy for the Pentagon, sending the massive piece of legislation to the White House, which has said President Donald Trump will sign it into law.
UNITED NATIONS, Dec 17 (Reuters) - United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Wednesday urged all parties in Yemen to exercise maximum restraint after an advance by southern separatists that risks rekindling a 10-year-old civil war after a long lull.
He also said the operating environment had become untenable in the areas held by the Iran-aligned Houthi movement - Yemen's capital Sanaa and the heavily populated northwest.
(Reporting by Michelle Nichols, editing by David Ljunggren)
An Iranian boxer sentenced to death on charges of membership of an outlawed group is at imminent risk of execution after his request for a retrial was rejected, rights groups and the exiled opposition said on Wednesday.
The World Boxing Council and sporting luminaries including former tennis star Martina Navratilova have called on Iran to spare the life of Mohammad Javad Vafaei-Sani, 30, a silver medallist in the national boxing championship.
LONDON, Dec 17 (Reuters) - British police on Wednesday said they would take tougher action against people who use placards and chants to target the Jewish community, saying recent violent incidents had changed the context around such protests.
The move comes days after 15 people died in a mass shooting at Australia's Bondi Beach targeting an event for the Jewish festival of Hanukkah, and following an attack at a synagogue in Manchester in northern England in October in which two Jewish worshippers were killed.
Dec 17 - More than two months after Israel and Hamas agreed a ceasefire halting two years of devastating warfare in Gaza, most fighting has stopped.
However, both sides accuse each other of major breaches of the deal and look no closer to accepting the much more difficult steps envisaged for the next phase.
WHAT HAVE THEY AGREED TO?
Ceasefire steps are outlined in three different documents.
By Tarek Amara
TUNIS, Dec 17 (Reuters) - Tunisian President Kais Saied's supporters rallied in the capital on Wednesday calling the opposition "traitors", following mounting street protests in recent weeks that have highlighted widening political divisions.
The rival rallies come amid a deepening economic crisis marked by high inflation, shortages of some basic goods and poor public services, which have fuelled public anger.
By Michael Georgy
DUBAI, Dec 17 (Reuters) - The shooting attack at a Jewish Hanukkah event at Sydney's Bondi Beach put the spotlight on Islamic State, which police said appeared to inspire the gunmen.
The men accused of carrying out Australia’s worst mass shooting in nearly 30 years had spent time in the Philippines, where Islamic State-linked networks are known to operate.
WHAT IS ISLAMIC STATE?
The Sunni Muslim group emerged in Iraq and Syria and quickly created a "caliphate", declaring its rule over all Muslims and largely displacing al Qaeda.
By Byron Kaye
SYDNEY, Dec 17 (Reuters) - After Australia's deadliest mass shooting in 1996, the country rushed in some of the world's toughest gun laws, including mandatory licensing and background checks, as well as registration of every firearm.
But a winding back of those laws, failure to update them with the internet age and growing complacency with background checks may have made it easier for two suspects behind Sunday's shooting during a Hanukkah celebration at Sydney's Bondi Beach to acquire weapons, gun safety experts said.
SYDNEY, Dec 17 (Reuters) - Police in Australia said on Wednesday they had charged a man who allegedly opened fire on a Jewish event on Sydney's Bondi Beach with 59 offences, including a terror charge.
(Reporting by Alasdair Pal in Sydney; Editing by Jacqueline Wong)
SYDNEY, Dec 17 (Reuters) - The Australian state parliament of New South Wales will reconvene next week to discuss urgent legislation on gun control in the wake of the deadly Bondi shootings and consider protest reforms, Premier Chris Minns said on Wednesday.
(Reporting by Christine Chen in Sydney; Editing by Jacqueline Wong)
