China’s second aircraft carrier, the first to be domestically built, appears to have left the Dalian Shipyard on Thursday for its ninth sea trial, where it might receive fighter jets before its official commissioning, reports said.

The United States and other members of the coalition to defeat the Islamic State failed to reach consensus on what to do with captured foreign fighters, one of several issues threatening to reverse gains made against the terror group in Syria and Iraq.

Iraq’s prominent Shia cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani has called on legislators to promptly introduce a fair electoral law that would restore people’s faith in elections in the wake of weeks of protests in the capital Baghdad and a host of southern cities.