Nairobi / AFP A British journalist arrested in Mogadishu while on a reporting assignment has been released by Somalian security forces, his employer Al-Jazeera said on its website on Thursday.Hamza Mohamed was ar rested on Tuesday along with a driver, fixer and cameraman. He had been in the country for a week. Somali authorities had earlier informed Al-Jazeera that they ...

  Yangon / AFP A total of 72 people died when an overloaded ferry sank in central Myanmar, local officials said Thursday, calling for an overhaul of the creaking boats that ply the river as the search effort ended. Scores of teachers, students and workers were packed into the crowded boat when it capsized in the early hours of Saturday as ...

  Beijing / AFP Philippines’ President Rodrigo Duterte and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping pledged to enhance trust and deepen cooperation on Thursday, Chinese officials said, as Manila’s new leader seeks to rebalance his country’s diplomacy away from the US. China welcomed Duterte—who donned a suit and tie for the occasion—with an official ceremony outside the Great Hall of the People ...

  Edinburgh / AFP Scotland’s government published a draft independence referendum bill on Thursday as a fallback plan if it is not able to keep strong ties with the EU and win more powers from London as part of Brexit talks. The bill would give non-British EU citizens living in Scotland, who were not allowed to take part in the EU ...

  Jakarta / AFP An Indonesian IS group supporter was jailed for 10 years on Thursday for helping make a bomb used in a deadly attack in Jakarta, as the country faces an increase in IS-linked assaults. Dodi Suridi, 23, was found guilty of committing an act of terror over his links to the attack in the Indonesian capital in January, ...

  Seoul / AFP North Korea on Thursday conducted what appeared to be a failed test—its second in a week—of a powerful medium-range missile that experts warn could be deployed as early as next year. South Korean and US military monitors said the missile—believed to be an intermediate-range Musudan—exploded shortly after take-off at around 6:30 am Pyongyang time. The attempted launch ...

  Bloomberg Malaysia Airlines Bhd. said it will use six surplus Airbus Group SE A380 superjumbos to form the core of a fleet of 700-seat jets dedicated to transporting Muslim travelers on the annual Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca. Peter Bellew, the carrier’s chief executive officer, met Airbus’s senior management in Toulouse, France, on Wednesday to hammer out details of the ...

  Bloomberg Nestle SA forecast the slowest full-year sales growth in more than a decade as food companies worldwide struggle against consumer resistance to price increases. Revenue will gain about 3.5 percent on an organic basis in 2016, the Vevey, Switzerland-based maker of Nespresso coffee said in a statement on Thursday, abandoning a goal for an increase of about 4.2 ...

  New York / AFP US apparel group Gap Inc. will close its Banana Republic stores in Britain as it streamlines its brick-and-mortar presence outside North America in response to weak sales. Gap will shut all eight Banana Republic stores in Britain, a Gap spokeswoman said. The majority of closures will take place by the end of January. The apparel ...

  Bloomberg UK retail sales stagnated for a second month in September as soaring prices and warm weather hit demand for clothing. The figures, from the Office for National Statistics Thursday, also showed that sales excluding auto fuel were unchanged from August. Small increases on both measures had been expected by economists. Clothing and footwear sales fell 2.8 percent after ...