Politics

  London / AFP Theresa May will visit Berlin on Wednesday in her first foreign visit as Britain’s new prime minister, Downing Street said, for talks with Chancellor Angela Merkel on the UK’s preparations to leave the EU. She will then head for Paris on Thursday for similar talks with French President Francois Hollande, and for discussions on counter-terrorism cooperation ...

  Beirut / AFP Syrian refugee Abu Adnan was rushing his newborn to the doctor one night in the Lebanese town of Rmeish when municipal police stopped him and began questioning him. He was in violation of a municipal curfew that prevents Syrian refugees from leaving their homes between sunset and sunrise. “They began questioning me — ‘Where are you ...

  Istanbul / AFP Turkish authorities on Sunday pressed on with a ruthless crackdown against suspects in the failed coup against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, with 6,000 people including generals detained in action that has sparked international concern. World leaders including US President Barack Obama have strongly condemned the attempted putsch but also urged Turkey to respect the rule of law ...

  Yerevan / AFP An armed Armenian group with links to a jailed opposition leader seized a police building in Yerevan on Sunday, killing one policemen and taking several more hostage, including top officers. One of the gunman said they were demanding the resignation of President Serzh Sarkisian and the release of political prisoners but the country’s security services dismissed ...

  Dubai / AFP A court on Sunday ordered the dissolution of Bahrain’s Shiite main opposition group Al-Wefaq, a judicial source said, despite international criticism of the Sunni-ruled Gulf kingdom’s intensified crackdown on dissent. The administrative court in Manama also ordered the funds of the group, accused by authorities of “harbouring terrorism” among other charges, to be seized by the ...

  Yangon / AFP Myanmar’s de facto premier Aung San Suu Kyi held landmark talks with senior rebel leaders on Sunday, as she strives to seal a ceasefire with a patchwork of ethnic minority militias that have battled the national army for decades. Suu Kyi has made peace a flagship policy of her newly installed civilian-led government which replaced decades ...

  New Delhi / AFP Twenty-one labourers died after drinking toxic homemade liquor in northern India, police said on Sunday, in the latest incident of alcohol poisoning in the country. Police in Uttar Pradesh state’s Etah district said the victims started to vomit and fall sick, complaining of severe stomach aches and blurred vision after consuming the illicit moonshine late ...

  Nice, France / AFP French investigators arrested two more people on Sunday as they pieced together details about the motives and planning of the Tunisian who rammed a truck into a crowd in an IS-claimed attack that killed 84. Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel staked out the Nice promenade with his rented truck twice in the two days before he smashed the ...

  Paris / AFP UNESCO on Sunday listed Franco-Swiss architect Le Corbusier’s works — including the Indian city of Chandigarh which he planned in the 1950s— among its World Heritage Sites. The decision was announced as the World Heritage Committee meeting in Istanbul resumed for a day on Sunday, after being suspended a day earlier due to an abortive putsch bid ...

  Washington / AFP An overwhelming majority of Americans think the next president should place “major” focus on improving US race relations, which most see as “generally bad.” The Washington Post/ABC News poll released on Saturday was taken shortly after the mass shooting of white police officers by a black sniper that followed two high-profile shooting deaths of black men at ...