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Xinhua world news summary at 0030 GMT, Dec. 17

Xinhua, December 17, 2015 Adjust font size:

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Wednesday that a new round of Syria international talks will be held in New York on Friday.

At his year-end press conference at UN Headquarters in New York, the UN chief said the next round of Syria talks will kick off in New York on Dec. 18 following a meeting of the UN Security Council on Syria. (UN-Syria)

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WASHINGTON -- The U.S. government on Wednesday announced a new threat alert mechanism in the wake of new warnings about home-grown attacks.

As a major change to the existing National Terrorism Advisory System (NTAS), the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) now adds NTAS Bulletin as an intermediate level to the NTAS system, which previously only included two advisory levels, namely an elevated alert and an imminent alert, DHS chief Jeh Johnson announced here at a press conference. (U.S.-National terrorism advisory system)

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WASHINGTON -- U.S. Federal Reserve on Wednesday decided to raise benchmark interest rate by 25 basis points, the first interest rate increase since 2006, marking the end of an era of extraordinary easing monetary policy.

Given the considerable improvement in labor market conditions this year and it is reasonably confident that inflation will rise, the central bank decided to raise the target range for the federal funds rate to 0.25-0.5 percent, the Fed said in a statement after concluding a two-day policy meeting on Wednesday. (U.S.-Fed-Rate hike)

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STOCKHOLM -- Sweden will not send fighter jets to aid the French mission against the Islamic State (IS) terror organization in Syria, the country's foreign minister said on Wednesday.

France had called for the support of other European Union member states after gunmen last month attacked several targets in Paris, killing 130 people, but Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom said the request lacked sufficient grounds in international law. (Sweden-France-Fighter jets) Endi