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Xinhua world news summary at 0030 GMT, Feb. 21

Xinhua, February 21, 2017 Adjust font size:

U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday named Lieutenant General Herbert McMaster as his new national security adviser.

"He is a man of tremendous talent and tremendous experience...he is respected by everybody in the military, we are very honored to have him," Trump said in his Florida residence Mar-a-Lago. (US-Senior Official)

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MOSCOW -- Russian Ambassador to the United Nations (UN) Vitaly Churkin suddenly died on Monday in New York, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

"The Russian Foreign Ministry is saddened to announce the death of Vitaly Churkin, Russia's Permanent Representative to the UN, on Monday in New York, a day before his 65th birthday," said the brief statement, without disclosing the cause of his death. (Russia-US-Ambassador)

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WASHINGTON -- International Monetary Fund agreed to send back a mission to Greece to complete a review of Greece's economic reforms, an IMF spokesperson said on Monday.

The announcement came after the Eurogroup meeting in Brussels, where Greece's international creditors agreed on the bailout review. (IMF-Greece-Bailout review)

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PARIS -- French investigators searched the headquarters of Marine Le Pen's far-right Front National Party in Nanterre, west of Paris on Monday as part of an inquiry into alleged misuse of European fund to pay the party's staff.

The anti-immigration party confirmed in a statement that a search was made for the second time at the same offices concerning the same alleged facts. (France-Le Pen-Investigation)

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MOSUL -- Iraqi security forces reached the vicinity of the international airport in western Mosul on Monday, as the troops are pushing closer to the city in a new phase of offensive to drive out Islamic State (IS) militants from its major stronghold in the western side of it, the Iraqi military said.

In south of Mosul, the federal police forces and Counter-Terrorism Service freed the hill of Albu Saif, just south of Mosul airport, after clashes with IS militants, leaving many of them killed and destroying a booby-trapped vehicle, a statement by the Iraqi Joint Operations Command said. (Iraq-Mosul) Endi