Politics

  Beirut / AFP Thousands of civilians have fled a stronghold of the IS group in northern Syria almost surrounded by US-backed fighters seeking to cut a key supply lifeline for the extremists. The Arab-Kurdish offensive on the town of Manbij is one of two major assaults on the route IS uses to send in more fighters, weapons and money from ...

  Ankara / AFP Turkish President RecepTayyipErdogan has signed into law a reform lifting immunity for lawmakers, his office said, in a move critics believe is aimed at evicting pro-Kurdish MPs from parliament. Erdogan’s approval came late Tuesday, less than a month after parliament adopted the highly controversial reform, which lifts the immunity of 138 deputies from all parties who ...

  Jakarta / AFP Indonesia plans to quadruple maximum jail terms for animal poachers and traffickers in a major overhaul of wildlife crime laws, but environmentalists expressed scepticismon Wednesday the changes would be effective. Maximum sentences for poaching and trading protected animals will be increased from five years to 20 under the new legislation proposed by the environment and forestry ...

  Strasbourg / AFP More than 10,000 people have died crossing the Mediterranean to Europe since 2014, the UN said Tuesday, as the EU unveiled fresh plans to stem the migrant flow from Africa. Following a rash of deadly shipwrecks that have claimed hundreds of lives, the UN refugee agency said the number of deaths at sea had risen sharply, with ...

  Geneva / AFP Eritrea’s government has systematically committed crimes against humanity in the last 25 years, with top officials bearing direct responsibility, UN investigators said on Wednesday. The second report of the United Nations Commission of Inquiry (COI) on human rights also said there was a “rule of law vacuum” in the secretive Horn of Africa nation. Independent UN ...

  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 ...