Politics

  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 ...

  Aleppo / AFP Syria’s regime intensified air strikes on rebel-held areas of Aleppo province Monday as a UN envoy prepared to meet US and Russian officials to try to revive peace talks. France called for an immediate humanitarian truce in Aleppo city after civilian deaths in the provincial capital and after four hospitals were bombed there on Sunday. On ...

  Jerusalem / AFP Israeli authorities have advanced plans for 770 new settlement homes in annexed east Jerusalem, officials and rights groups said on Monday, drawing condemnation from Palestinian leaders and the United Nations. The homes would expand the Gilo settlement on the southern perimeter of east Jerusalem. They are part of a larger plan for around 1,200 units approved some ...

  Antananarivo / AFP A house fire during a party in central Madagascar killed 38 people including 16 children as the blaze ripped through a thatched roof, police said Monday. The victims—the youngest only six months old—were trapped inside the house in Ambalavato village of Ikalamavony district in the rural centre of the island. The party-goers, including several relatives of the ...

  Ansbach / AFP A failed Syrian asylum seeker who blew himself up outside a German music festival had made a video pledging allegiance to the IS group, in the second attack claimed by the extremists in Germany in a week. The 27-year-old assailant wounded 15 people, four of them seriously, near a cafe in the southern city of Ansbach on ...

Kabul / AFP Civilian casualties in Afghanistan soared to a record high in the first half of 2016, the UN said on Monday, with children in particular paying a heavy price for growing insecurity as the conflict escalates. The UN report, which comes days after the deadliest attack in Kabul since the Taliban were ousted from power in 2001, cited ...