Jolo /AFP The Philippine military deployed thousands of extra troops on Tuesday to destroy an extremist group notorious for kidnapping foreigners, after 15 soldiers were killed, authorities said. President Rodrigo Duterte has ordered his security forces to wipe out the Abu Sayyaf, which has declared allegiance to the IS group and recently beheaded two Canadian hostages. But an assault ...

  Washington / AFP US President Barack Obama will meet controversial Philippine leader Rodrigo Duterte next week, the White House said, despite concerns over a war on crime that has claimed more than 2,000 lives. Since taking office two months ago, Duterte has begun making good on an election pledge to kill tens of thousands of suspected criminals, prompting criticism ...

  Istanbul / AFP Turkey’s week-old cross-border offensive in Syria could become a drawn-out affair that stokes tensions with Washington if Ankara continues to take the fight to US-backed Kurdish fighters, analysts say. Turkey says its unprecedented operation aims to rid the border of both the IS group and the anti-IS Kurdish YPG militia, which Ankara considers a terrorist group. ...

  London / AFP United Nations aid contracts worth tens of millions of dollars have gone to people closely associated with Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad despite US and EU sanctions, the Guardian reported on Tuesday. The newspaper’s analysis of hundreds of UN contracts granted since the Syrian conflict began in 2011 showed many awarded “to companies run by or linked to ...

  Jerusalem / AFP Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office on Tuesday called criticism of Israeli settlement building “absurd” after a UN envoy strongly hit out at his government over the issue. “The claim that it is illegal for Jews to build in Jerusalem is as absurd as saying Americans can’t build in Washington or the French can’t build in Paris,” Netanyahu ...

  Tripoli / AFP Libya has shipped the last of its chemical weapons stocks out of the country, officials said on Tuesday, under a UN-backed plan to ensure the arsenal could not fall into the wrong hands. The move will ease fears that extremists like the Islamic State group could gain access to the weapons in Libya, which has been wracked ...

  Bishkek / AFP A van driven by a suicide bomber exploded after ramming through a gate at the Chinese embassy in Kyrgyzstan on Tuesday, wounding three people, authorities said. “As a result of the explosion, only the suicide bomber terrorist died. Security guards were injured,” Kyrgyzstan’s Deputy Prime Minister Jenish Razakov told journalists at the scene. Razakov said the ...

  Dhaka / AFP A wealthy tycoon who was a chief financier for Bangladesh’s largest radical party could be executed in days after losing his final appeal on Tuesday against a death sentence from a controversial war crimes tribunal. The Supreme Court rejected Mir Quasem Ali’s last attempt to overturn the death penalty handed down two years ago by the domestic ...

  Germany’s vice chancellor, Sigmar Gabriel, says talks about a major trade deal between the European Union and the U.S. have failed, though “nobody is really admitting it.” That statement should be taken with a grain of salt, but the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership appears to be doomed, at least until after elections in the U.S. and major European ...

  Monsanto’s many battles with the Indian government have typically been cast as clashes between poor Indian farmers and a giant multinational that’s overcharging for its genetically modified seeds. And certainly, the U.S. agriculture giant isn’t the most sympathetic of companies. Its seeds are indeed expensive and, in the case of cotton, no longer deliver the returns promised as resistance ...