Politics

  Manila / AFP Incoming Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte on Monday hit out at “stupid” human rights campaigners, as he defended his imminent war on crime and emphasised the death penalty was for retribution. Duterte gave a lengthy speech in his southern hometown of Davao to outline his vision for the nation once he takes office on Thursday, with a ...

  LAKE ISABELLA / AP Firefighters advanced on a wildfire in central California that has claimed two lives and destroyed 200 homes. Federal fire officials said containment on the 68-square-mile blaze increased from 10 percent to 40 percent. Some 2,000 firefighters were battling the blaze, which destroyed many homes belonging to retirees on fixed incomes with few other possessions. “Most people ...

  SAN FRANCISCO / AP Ten people suffered stab wounds and other injuries after members of a white nationalist group that planned to rally outside the California state Capitol building in Sacramento clashed with a larger group of counter protesters, authorities said. The fight broke out when about 30 members of the Traditionalist Worker Party gathering to rally around noon Sunday ...

  Al-Qaa / AFP A string of suicide bombings early on Monday killed at least five people in a Lebanese village near the volatile border with war-ravaged Syria. The attack came just hours after the IS group on Sunday claimed responsibility for a suicide bomb that killed seven soldiers on Jordan’s border with Syria. Monday’s deadly blasts struck Al-Qaa, a predominantly ...

  AMMAN / AP The extremist IS group claimed responsibility for last week’s deadly suicide attack on a Jordanian army post on the Syrian border, posting a video online on Monday it said shows the car bomb blast. The video, which was posted on the Facebook page of the IS news agency Amaq, shows a vehicle kicking up dust as it ...

  ISLAMABAD / AP A former Afghan warlord has announced that a much-touted peace deal between his militant group and the Kabul government is effectively “dead.” The comments by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar came after his Hezb-i-Islami effectively scuttled the deal, drafted weeks ago, with new demands. Hekmatyar offered a lengthy diatribe against Kabul in the Daily Shahadat magazine belonging to his ...

  NEW DELHI / AP India on Monday joined an exclusive club of countries controlling exports in missile technology, just a day after bemoaning its exclusion from another elite group that governs international nuclear fuel and technology. Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar signed onto the Missile Technology Control Regime aimed at preventing the unchecked proliferation of missiles and their delivery systems. ...

  Port Harcourt/ AFP Five foreign construction workers kidnapped last week with two Nigerian colleagues after their vehicle was attacked and driver killed have been released, officials said on Monday, with two suffering serious injuries. The commissioner of police in Cross River state, Jimoh Ozi-Obeh, said that the men, including three Australians, a New Zealander and a South African, had ...

  BEIJING / AP China’s premier called on Monday for joint efforts to restore global economic confidence following the shock of Britain’s vote to leave the European Union. Last week’s referendum “has had an obvious impact on international financial markets. We are seeing increasing uncertainties in the world economy,” said Li Keqiang, speaking at the World Economic Forum in the ...

  BAGHDAD / AP A senior Iraqi commander declared that the city of Fallujah was “fully liberated” from IS group militants on Sunday, after a more than monthlong military operation. Iraqi troops have entered the northwestern Al Julan neighborhood, the last area of Fallujah to remain under IS control, the head of the counterterrorism forces in the operation, Lt. Gen. Abdul-Wahab ...