Politics

  Manila / AFP Philippine leader Benigno Aquino called on his countrymen on Sunday to fight attempts to take away their freedoms as he prepared to hand over power to president-elect Rodrigo Duterte, who has vowed to kill tens of thousands of criminals. Duterte won last month’s elections in a landslide largely on a pledge to suppress what he said ...

  Guatemala City / AFP Two former top Guatemalan cabinet ministers were arrested on corruption charges stemming from their tenure in the government of jailed ex-president Otto Perez, the Central American country’s attorney general said. They are alleged to have used their positions to illegally raise money that then was spent on lavish birthday gifts for Perez. The gifts allegedly ...

  Bloomberg Al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri endorsed the Afghan Taliban guerrillas, a move that may boost the group’s insurgency in Afghanistan after President Barack Obama approved the expansion of the US military’s role in the war-plagued nation. Al-Zawahiri announced that he would “extend my pledge of allegiance” in a 14-minute online audio recording, Reuters reported on Saturday. “We’re still waiting ...

  Washington / AFP The coalition fighting the IS group in Syria may have accidentally hit allied rebels during an air strike at the end of last month, a US military spokesman said on Saturday. Coalition forces carried out three air strikes against tactical IS units and vehicles near Ma’ra on May 28, Centcom spokesman Colonel Patrick Ryder said in ...

  Dhaka / AFP Bangladesh police have arrested an additional 2,000 suspected criminals including militants in an ongoing crackdown on extremists following a spate of gruesome murders, an officer said on Sunday. More than 3,000 people, including suspected ordinary criminals with existing warrants against them, were arrested on Saturday after police launched a controversial anti-militant drive across the Muslim-majority nation. ...

  Washington / AFP CIA chief John Brennan said that secret findings of a 2002 congressional investigation into the 9/11 attacks should not be taken as evidence of official Saudi complicity. A decision is expected soon on whether to release the classified 28-page section of the report by the House and Senate intelligence committees. Former senator Bob Graham, who headed ...

  Bamako / AFP As the United Nations looks to extend its most deadly active mission for peacekeepers for another year, those working closely with its venture in Mali say poor local collaboration and funding gaps are costing lives. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has asked the Security Council to approve 2,500 extra troops and police for the Mali force, known ...

  BENGHAZI / AP Militants from the IS group have barricaded themselves in the center of their stronghold in Libya’s coastal city of Sirte, hoping to draw militias fighting to dislodge them into a protracted street battle, a spokesman for the fighters loyal to the UN-backed government said on Sunday. Brig-Gen. Mohammed Al Ghasri said the militants have fallen back ...

  Bloomberg Kenya’s national assembly wants to give the East African nation’s supreme court more time to settle presidential election disputes and reform the Independent and Electoral and Boundaries Commission to ease concerns of the opposition party that have spurred nationwide protests and left at least five people dead. The draft proposes to give the supreme court 30 days, up ...

  WASHINGTON / AP Far from ending the two wars he inherited from the Bush administration, Barack Obama is wrestling with an expanded set of conflicts in the final months of his presidency, from Iraq and Afghanistan to Libya and Syria, with no end in sight. In Afghanistan, where a Taliban resurgence has upset Washington’s “exit strategy,” Obama is giving the ...