The Bank of France has cut its forecast for fourth-quarter growth, confirming that business has been affected by the November 13 terrorist attacks in Paris, Bloomberg reports.
The IS group claimed the attacks, which killed 130 people.
Turkey's Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has said that Ankara will impose sanctions on Russia if needed but remains open to talks with Moscow, Turkey's Today's Zaman reports.
Moscow has imposed economic sanctions on Turkey in the wake of the November 24 downing by the Turkish Air Force of a Russian Su-24 jet near the Syrian border.
Most children living in IS-controlled Raqqa do not go to school, the Syria Direct news website reports.
Syria Direct has interviewed Hamoud al-Mousa of the activist group Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently, who says that children in Raqqa have few options.
"Most stay inside all day as their families prevent them from going outdoors out of fear for their lives. Those who do go out do so to work or sell different items to earn money for the family. Also, many children have pledged allegiance to IS out of this necessity," Mousa said.
There is a growing disconnect between Washington and Baghdad in the U.S.-led coalition's fight against the IS group in Iraq, AP reports.
The growing split has been highglighted by the series of rows over foreign forces on Iraqi soil, AP says, including the outrage this week from Baghdad over media reports that Turkish troops were deploying to a base outside IS-controlled Mosul in northern Iraq.
"In truth, a few hundred Turkish trainers have been present in Iraq for months, working to train Kurdish peshmerga fighters and Sunni militiamen. Their presence, while not publicly advertised, appears to have been done in coordination with both Baghdad and the semi-autonomous Kurdish regional government in Iraq's north," AP points out.
Syria's political and armed opposition factions are meeting today in Saudi Arabia for a conference aimed at pursuing peace talks.
Representatives are expected to attempt to agree a common position from which to negotiate with Bashar al-Assad's government.
The IS group has -- of course -- not been invited. Neither has Syria's powerful Al-Qaeda affiliate, the Al-Nusra Front. The Syrian Kurds, who control swathes of northern Syria, have also not been invited.
The BBC says that the ultraconservative Salafist Islamist rebel group Ahrar al-Sham, which aims to build an Islamic state in Syria after ousting Assad, is attending. Ahrar al-Sham is part of the powerful Jaish al-Fatah rebel alliance that includes the Al-Nusra Front.
Jaish al-Islam, another Islamist rebel group that operates mostly around Damascus, is also attending. So is the moderate Southern Front alliance.
Egypt's Ambassador to Russia, Mohamed El-Badri, has said that his country will continue to investigate for as long as needed the causes of the crash of a Russian passenger plane in Sinai on October 31, RIA Novosti reports.
IS claimed responsibility for the disaster, saying that its local affiliate planted a bomb made from a soft drink can on board the flight.
El-Badri told RIA Novosti today that various parties are involved in the investigation, including Russia, Egypt, and the airplane manufacturer.
Members of the California rock band Eagles of Death Metal have visited the Paris venue where they survived a terrorist attack by suicide bombers.
The band came today to the Bataclan theater in eastern Paris where 89 people were killed inside on November 13. The band members escaped the massacre by hiding in a dressing room.
Campaign rhetoric in the United States is harming an important U.S. resettlement program for Syrian refugees, the United Nations refugee agency warned today.
Asked about remarks by Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump, who yesterday called for a ban on Muslims entering the United States, UNCHR spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said Trump was "speaking of an entire population but this also impacts the refugee program."
"Our refugee program is religion-blind. Our resettlement program selects the people who are most at need," Fleming told a news briefing in Geneva.
Analyst Michael Horowitz has tweeted this image of the Eagles of Death Metal band in front of the Bataclan theater in Paris today, paying their respects to the victims of the November 13 Paris attacks.
Turkey has halted the deployment of troops to northern Iraq for the time being but will not withdraw those already there, Turkey's Foreign Ministry said today, Today's Zaman reports.