Politics

  Vienna / AFP Austria’s anti-immigration Freedom Party filed on Wednesday a legal challenge two weeks after its candidate lost out by the narrowest of margins on being elected the EU’s first far-right president, alleging “terrifying” irregularities. “We are not sore losers. This is about protecting the very foundations of democracy,” FPOe leader Heinz-Christian Strache said in Vienna as he ...

  Wellington / AFP Prime Minister John Key will this week become the first New Zealand leader to visit Fiji in a decade, saying the military coup that soured Wellington-Suva relations for years is “ancient history”. But human rights groups say worrying legacies of dictatorship remain in the Pacific island nation, despite elections in 2014 that resulted in a landslide ...

  New York/ AFP Hillary Clinton declared a historic victory for women as she grasped the Democratic Party nomination and the chance to become America’s first female president. “Thanks to you, we’ve reached a milestone,” a beaming Clinton told ecstatic supporters in New York: “the first time in our nation’s history that a woman will be a major party’s nominee.” ...

  Washington / AFP US President Barack Obama congratulated Hillary Clinton for clinching the Democratic presidential nomination, and planned to meet with her party rival Bernie Sanders later this week, the White House said. Obama called Clinton and Sanders and “congratulated both candidates for running inspiring campaigns that have energized Democrats, brought a new generation of Americans into the political ...

  Caracas / AFP Venezuela’s opposition cleared its first hurdle in its uphill race to call a referendum on removing President Nicolas Maduro, whom it blames for driving the country to the brink of collapse. But the leftist leader flexed his muscle when riot police fired tear gas to block opposition protesters from marching on the electoral authority’s headquarters, underlining ...

  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 ...