Politics

  Chittagong / AFP China accused the Philippines on Wednesday of ignoring requests for dialogue about their maritime dispute, as tensions rise before an international tribunal’s ruling on the territorial row. The Philippines has “unilaterally closed the door of settling the South China Sea issue with China through negotiation”, China’s foreign ministry said in a lengthy statement published by the ...

  Washington/ AFP Two Chinese jets conducted an “unsafe” intercept of a US spy plane over the East China Sea, officials said, but the Pentagon downplayed the encounter and blamed it on shoddy piloting. According to US Pacific Command spokesman Commander David Benham, two Chinese J-10 fighter jets flew close to an American RC-135 reconnaissance plane that was on a ...

  Sydney / AFP Giant waves and high winds have prevented any search operations for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 for the past month with the hunt now not expected to be complete until August, authorities said on Wednesday. Australia is leading the painstaking search for MH370 in the remote Indian Ocean, but the wild weather has not allowed the ...

  Istanbul / AFP A bomb ripped through a Turkish police bus near Istanbul’s historic centreon Tuesday, killing seven officers and four civilians in the latest of a string of attacks in Turkey’s biggest city. The car bomb targeted a bus carrying anti-riot police as it was passing through the central Beyazit district close to many of the city’s top tourist ...

  Jérusalem / AFP The head of a group of women activists pushing for equal prayer rights at Jerusalem’s Western Wall was detained on Tuesday after taking a Torah scroll there in defiance of the holy site’s rules, the group said. The incident comes as activists, Israel’s government and the ultra-Orthodox Jewish establishment debate a controversial plan to create a ...

  Berlin / AFP Germany recorded around 16,000 new asylum seekers in May, almost unchanged from April, official data showed on Tuesday, after the closure of the key Balkans route slowed a record influx. Among the 16,281 asylum seekers who arrived in Germany in May, Syrians made up the biggest group at 2,685, followed by Afghans at 2,289 and 1,355 ...

  Beirut / AFP Russian-backed Syrian regime forces inched closerto a key stop on a vital IS group supply line, as a twin offensive bore down on the extremists’ northern stronghold. The advance comes as 17 civilians were killed in air raids on a popular market in eastern Syria on the first day of the holy Muslim month of Ramadan. ...

  Niamey / AFP Niger vowed to avenge the deaths of 26 of its soldiers who were killed by Boko Haram insurgents in one of the extremist group’s deadliest attacks in the country. “We must continue to fight, this insult must be expunged, there is nothing to be done, it must be avenged,” Defence Minister HassoumiMassoudou said. The minister was ...

  Iraq / AP As Iraqi security forces tighten their grip on the outskirts of militant-held Fallujah allegations of human rights violations are surfacing on both sides of the operation. Hundreds of civilians, many bearing marks of torture were released north of Fallujah after being detained by a group of government sanctioned mostly Shiite militias. Five of those detained died while ...

  Warsaw / AFP Troops hit the ground in Poland on Tuesday as Warsaw kicked off its largest-ever joint military exercises with its NATO allies, aimed at shoring up regional security amid the West’s worst standoff with Russia since the end of the Cold War. The two-week long Anaconda manoeuvres are aimed at “checking the alliance’s ability to defend its ...