Politics

  Beirut / AFP Kurdish-Arab forces launched a major assault against the IS in Syria’s Raqa province and Iraqi forces advanced on it in Fallujah, piling pressure on the extremists in two strongholds. The twin offensives marked some of the most serious ground efforts against IS since the group declared its self-styled “caliphate” straddling the Syrian-Iraqi border in 2014. Territory ...

  BERLIN / AP Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Cabinet on Wednesday approved a raft of new measures combining “opportunities and obligations” designed to help Germany deal with the influx of some 1.1 million asylum-seekers registered as entering the country last year and help those who stay become “good neighbors and citizens.” The package seeks to provide migrants with better access to ...

  Los Angeles / AFP Protesters opposed to Donald Trump hurled rocks and bottles outside a rally he spoke at in New Mexico, the same day the bombastic billionaire won the Republican presidential primary in Washington state. The victory brings Trump, the last Republican standing in the 2016 US presidential race, one major step closer toward clinching his party’s nomination. ...

  KIEV / AP Russia on Wednesday released Ukrainian pilot Nadezhda Savchenko as part of a swap for two Russian servicemen jailed in Ukraine, an official in the Ukrainian presidential administration said. Savchenko was being flown to Kiev aboard Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko’s plane, according to the official. Kremlin-funded television station RT, citing unidentified sources, reported that the two Russians ...

  Stockholm / AFP A Stockholm district court on Wednesday maintained a European arrest warrant against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange over a 2010 rape allegation, rejecting his lawyers’ request to have it lifted. “The court considers that Julian Assange is still suspected of rape… and that there is still a risk that he will abscond or evade justice,” it said ...

  Ise-Shima / AFP US President Barack Obama arrived in Japan on Wednesday for a Group of Seven summit, kicking off a historic visit that will also take him to the atomic-bombed city of Hiroshima. Obama was joining other leaders from the club of rich democracies for a gathering set to be dominated by the lacklustre state of the global ...

Tokyo / AFP Survivors of the American nuclear bombing of Hiroshima will be present when US President Barack Obama lays a wreath at ground zero this week, reports said on Wednesday. Former United States prisoners of war captured by the Japanese will also attend the event, the Yomiuri Shimbun said, with US officials hoping their presence will remove any impression ...

  Seoul / AFP Ban Ki-moon arrived in South Korea on Wednesday for a six-day visit that has fuelled speculation the UN chief is lining up a tilt at the presidency of his home country. Ban’s schedule involves a number of international gatherings, including a peace forum in the southern island of Jeju where he arrived late afternoon on a ...

  Beijing / AFP The disputed rocks and reefs of the South China Sea are more than an ocean away from the landlocked African nation of Niger. But that has not stopped the strife-ridden, largely desert country of 17 million people adding its voice to a growing diplomatic chorus that Beijing says supports its rejection of an international tribunal hearing ...

  BAGHDAD / AP Even as Iraq slowly claws back territory from the IS group, faith in the government is crumbling among many, particularly the country’s Shiites, angered by political disarray and the continual pounding of the capital, Baghdad, by militants’ bombings. Prime Minister Haider Al Abadi triumphantly announced the beginning of operations to retake the IS-held city Fallujah, promising over ...