HIROSHIMA / AP A gut-wrenched John Kerry said Hiroshima’s horrible history should teach humanity to avoid conflict and strive to eradicate nuclear weapons as he became the first US secretary of state to tread upon the ground of the world’s first atomic bombing. Kerry’s emotional visit on Monday to the Japanese city included him touring its peace museum with other ...

Washington / AFP CIA Director John Brennan promised that the US spy agency won’t use so-called “enhanced interrogation” techniques, including waterboarding, against terror suspects—not even under a new president’s orders to do so. Brennan’s comments may have an impact on this year’s White House race, after Republican frontrunner Donald Trump said he would authorize waterboarding—which President Barack Obama banned shortly ...

Hiroshima / AFP The United States is prepared to “ratchet up” pressure on North Korea after its latest provocations but remains open to talks, US Secretary of State John Kerry said on Monday. “It is still possible we will ratchet up (the pressure) even more depending on the actions of the DPRK (North Korea),” Kerry told reporters after a G7 ...

Moscow / AFP Three suicide bombers blew themselves up outside a police station in southern Russia on Monday as they tried to storm the building, police said, but no other casualities were reported. “We were holding a meeting in the morning when five explosions went off,” Sergei Karamyshev, a senior police officer in the village of Novoselitskoye in the southern ...

Greece / AFP Greece on Monday lashed out at Macedonia for using “excessive force” after police fired tear gas and rubber bullets on migrants trying to breach the closed border to enter the EU. Macedonian police accused crowds of hurling stones and other objects at them on Sunday in a bid to break down a fence at the border with ...

Brazil / AfP An impeachment commission was due to vote on the fate of Brazilian President DilmaRousseff ahead of a vote by the lower house of Congress to decide whether she should go to trial. Bad-tempered debate, interrupted by heckling and chanting, kicked off in the commission in Brasilia while security forces mounted a huge operation outside to separate rival ...

Paris / AFP French Prime Minister Manuel Valls unveiled measures on Monday to help young people find work, aiming to quell weeks of protests against the government’s proposed reforms to labour laws. Young people have been at the forefront of mass demonstrations against the reforms over the past month, which the government argues are aimed at making France’s rigid labour ...

Bloomberg Standard Chartered Plc is seeking to sell at least $4.4 billion of assets in Asia, people with knowledge of the matter said, as the lender pares its balance sheet after booking record impairments. The London-based bank is speaking with potential buyers for about $1.4 billion of stressed loans made to Indian firms including GMR Infrastructure Ltd., according to the ...

Bloomberg Reserve Bank of India(RBI) Governor Raghuram Rajan is going all out to build up the nation’s foreign-exchange reserves as he seeks to augment the rupee’s defenses. The stockpile grew to an unprecedented $359.76 billion in the week to April 1, Reserve Bank of India data showed. The reserves surged as Governor Raghuram Rajan bought dollars to take advantage of ...

Bloomberg The world’s central bankers, already hitting limits of their effectiveness on growth and inflation, are now contending with another risk: that additional stimulus could produce lackluster results and undercut investor confidence. The Bank of Japan’s decision in January to take interest rates negative has sent bond yields tumbling, while doing little to curb a surging yen that’s squeezing the ...