Politics

  Manila / AFP US Secretary of State John Kerry on Wednesday said Washington wanted to avoid “confrontation” in the South China Sea, after an international tribunal rejected Beijing’s claims to most of the waters. Kerry made the remarks after meeting with Philippine Foreign Secretary Perfecto Yasay in Manila where they discussed the Southeast Asian nation’s sweeping victory in the arbitration ...

  Brussels / AFP European Commission head Jean-Claude Juncker on Wednesday appointed veteran French politician and former EU commissioner Michel Barnier to lead the negotiations with Britain on its exit from the bloc. Britain’s June 23 vote to quit the 28-nation European Union shocked EU leaders who had bet on a vote to remain but they have since rallied, with France ...

  Cilacap / AFP Indonesia will be “on the wrong side of history” if it proceeds with a fresh round of executions this week, rights groups warned Wednesday, as authorities confirmed 14 prisoners will face the firing squad. A group of drug convicts including foreigners have been given notice of their executions and could be put to death as early ...

Beirut / AFP A double bomb attack killed 31 people and wounded dozens in the Kurdish-majority city of Qamishli in northeastern Syria on Wednesday, Syrian state television reported. In a breaking news alert, state television gave an “initial toll” of 31 dead and 170 wounded, adding that rescue workers were still retrieving victims of the blasts. The Syrian Observatory for Human ...

  Sagamihara / AFP A former employee went on knife rampage at a Japanese centre for the disabled on Tuesday, leaving 19 people dead and 25 injured in the country’s worst mass killing for decades. The 26-year-old man, who was fired and hospitalised earlier this year after making a threat to kill hundreds of disabled people, later turned himself in ...

  Moscow /AFP Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will visit Russia on August 9 for his first face-to-face meeting with Vladimir Putin since Moscow and Ankara mended ties damaged by the downing of a Russian jet last year, Turkish officials said on Tuesday. “The ambassador has informed us that our dear president (Erdogan) has confirmed that he will be in ...

  Vientiane / AFP US Secretary of State John Kerry said Tuesday talks with Russia about cooperation in Syria were “making progress”, adding he hopes next month to announce new steps aimed at ending the fighting. Russia and the United States support opposing sides in Syria’s five-year war, which has left 280,000 people dead and forced half the population to flee ...

  Ansbach / AFP Democratic power players Michelle Obama and Bernie Sanders offered contrasting heartfelt and hard-headed endorsements of Hillary Clinton, imploring a riven and feisty party convention to unite against Donald Trump. As polls showed Trump ahead of Clinton in the race to the White House, the first lady wowed the Philadelphia crowd as she impeached Trump’s character and hailed ...

  Sydney / AFP The Australian government ordered an inquiry on Tuesday after graphic evidence emerged of prison guards assaulting teenage boys, with one shown hooded and shackled in scenes likened to Guantanamo Bay. National broadcaster ABC showed footage of offenders, many indigenous, being stripped naked, tear-gassed and held in solitary confinement for weeks at a youth detention centre in ...

  Vientiane / AFP The United States warned North Korea on Tuesday that it faces “real consequences” over its internationally condemned nuclear and missile tests, which have inflamed tensions in East Asia. “Together we are determined… to make absolutely certain that DPRK (North Korea) understands that there are real consequences for these actions,” US Secretary of State John Kerry told reporters ...