Politics

  Xalapa / AFP Mexico’s ruling PRI party was trailing early Monday in key races for governor in elections considered as a test for its hopes of retaining the presidency in 2018. Results trickled in slowly late into the night in 12 states, out of 32, that voted on Sunday for new governors following an election day marked by incidents ...

  Berlin / AFP German President Joachim Gauck was expected to reveal on Monday that he will not stand for a second term, creating a political headache for Chancellor Angela Merkel ahead of an election year. The popular Gauck, 76, who has held the largely ceremonial post of head of state since 2012, will give a statement at Berlin’s Bellevue ...

  Beijing / AFP President Xi Jinping said China and the US needed to trust each other more as both sides sought to minimise tensions over the South China Sea at the opening on Monday of key annual talks in Beijing. China claims nearly all of the strategically vital sea despite competing claims by several Southeast Asian neighbours, and has ...

  Nairobi / AFP A Burundian journalist was arrested over the weekend and handed over to the dreaded secret service, witnesses and his colleagues said on Monday, expressing fears over his well-being. Egide Ndayisenga from Bonisha FM, a leading radio station, was arrested on Sunday morning in the northwestern city of Cibitoke, a witness said. “He was visiting friends,” the ...

  ANKARA / AP A bus carrying schoolchildren, teachers and parents has plunged into an irrigation canal in southern Turkey, killing 14 people — six of them children, officials and reports said on Monday. Twenty-six other people were injured in the accident which occurred late Sunday as the bus was returning from a school trip to a national park and ...

  Halula / AFP US-backed fighters advanced to within five kilometres (three miles) of the IS group’s stronghold of Manbij in northern Syria, threatening a crucial extremist supply line. The assault by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) adds to the pressure on IS as it faces another offensive by Russian-backed regime troops in its bastion province of Raqa and in ...

  Kuwait City/ AFP Yemen’s warring parties have pledged to free all child prisoners but have failed to reach agreement on a wider release for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, the UN envoy said on Monday. “In the prisoners committee, an agreement was made on the unconditional release of children,” Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed said in a statement. There ...

  BAGHDAD / AFP The IS group has been shooting at civilians as they try to flee the fighting between Iraqi government forces and IS militants in the city of Fallujah, west of Baghdad, an international aid organization says. A number of those fleeing civilians have been killed as they tried to cross the Euphrates River, the Norwegian Refugee Council, ...

  Ulan Bator / AFP US Secretary of State John Kerry on Sunday warned Beijing against setting up an air defence identification zone (ADIZ) over the disputed South China Sea during a visit to Mongolia. Washington would consider the establishment of such a zone—which would require civilian aircraft to identify themselves to military controllers—”a provocative and destabilising act,” Kerry said in ...

  Berlin / AFP A German right-wing populist politician has attacked Chancellor Angela Merkel as a “dictator” who is trying to “replace the German people” with migrants, a Sunday newspaper reported. Alexander Gauland, of the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, told a rally outside Berlin that Merkel’s liberal asylum policy was radically transforming the face of the country, the ...