Banjul / AFP Ansu Sanyang was ready. Sick of providing so little for his parents and sisters with any work he could find, the young Gambian resolved to take the migrant route through Libya to Europe. Then on Friday, December 1, he hesitated, hanging back to cast his vote in a presidential election that felt different to previous years. “I ...

  Daraga / AFP A powerful typhoon with gusts of up to 235 kilometres (146 miles) an hour hit the Philippines late Sunday, disrupting Christmas celebrations for tens of thousands who fled its approach, officials said. Typhoon Nock-Ten made landfall in the eastern island province of Catanduanes at 6:30 pm (1030 GMT), the state weather service said. There were no ...

  Tokyo / AFP Heavy snow in northern Japan caused transport chaos over the holiday weekend, with flights and train services cancelled and thousands of passengers forced to camp out at a regional airport for three straight nights. Sapporo on Hokkaido island had up to 96 centimetres (38 inches) of snow as of Friday night, the city’s heaviest snowfall in half ...

  Sydney / AFP A Sudanese refugee held at an Australian offshore detention camp has died after a “fall and seizure”, officials said, with the incident reportedly sparking a protest at the controversial facility. The 27-year-old, named by refugee advocates as Faysal Ishak Ahmed, died in a Brisbane hospital in eastern Australia after being flown to Queensland from Papua New Guinea’s ...

  Vatican City / AFP Pope Francis urged peace in the Middle East as tens of thousands gathered to hear his Christmas address on Sunday, while offering comfort to victims of terrorism after a year of bloody extremist attacks. The 80-year-old Argentine called for guns to fall silent in Syria, saying “far too much blood has been spilled” in the nearly ...

  Washington / AFP US President-elect Donald Trump said on Saturday he intends to dissolve his controversial philanthropic foundation to avoid conflicts of interest, but the move was quickly complicated by an ongoing legal probe. Trump’s sprawling portfolio of US and overseas business interests and holdings—as well as his Donald J Trump Foundation—have come under increased scrutiny in the weeks since ...

  Berlin / AFP An unwelcome Christmas surprise in southern Germany forced the evacuation of 54,000 people from their homes on Sunday after the discovery of a bomb dating from World War II, local authorities said. It was a British bomb that was found in the city of Augsburg and led to the biggest mobilisation in Germany—around 900 police officers—since ...

  As Beijing and more than 20 other cities in northern China have been plunged into another winter air-pollution crisis, with choking, toxic air and many people afraid to wander outside, observers wonder when China will start making significant progress on this problem. But there is some good news, namely that when it comes to clean air improvements, China probably ...

  To firms planning to buy other companies with borrowed money in the new year: Please take a moment to reconsider and learn from those who have gone before you. It’s true that companies flop all the time. But those that borrow gobs of money have a narrower margin for error. And companies in some sectors popular for leveraged buyouts, ...

  How much is a child’s future success determined by innate intelligence? Economist James Heckman says it’s not what people think. He likes to ask educated non-scientists — especially politicians and policy makers — how much of the difference between people’s incomes can be tied to IQ. Most guess around 25 percent, even 50 percent, he says. But the data ...