Twelve Syrian refugees launched a hunger strike in a camp on a Greek island on Friday, in an attempt to place pressure on authorities who have left them stranded for months. Eleven Kurdish-Syrians and one Arab asylum seeker announced the hunger strike in the Moria camp on the Greek island of Lesbos after authorities failed to provide them with travel documents to continue their journey to mainland Greece. Some of the protesters have been rejected entry onto the mainland and h

The Islamic State group has lost almost half of land it once controlled in Iraq, the Pentagon has said, as pro-government forces continued to power through territories on the ground. Militants within the Iraqi borders lost control of nearly half of terrain, despite earlier estimates suggesting that 40 percent had been recaptured by US-backed Iraqi forces. "The number right now in Iraq is about 45 percent of the territory they once held has been recovered," Pentagon spokesman