Politics

  Hanoi / AFP US President Barack Obama told communist Vietnam on Tuesday that basic human rights would not jeopardise its stability, in an impassioned appeal for the one-party state to abandon authoritarianism. In a sweeping speech, which harked back to the bloody war that defined both nations but also looked to the future, Obama said that “upholding rights is ...

  London / AFP Former Maldives president Mohamed Nasheed said he has been granted refugee status in Britain, after being toppled from power and jailed in a “slide towards authoritarianism” that has forced him into exile. Nasheed, the country’s first democratically elected leader, was sentenced to 13 years imprisonment on controversial terrorism charges last year, but was allowed to travel ...

Brasília /AFP Acting Brazilian president Michel Temer’s government faced its first major crisis when a key minister stepped aside following a leaked recording in which he appears to discuss using Dilma Rousseff’s impeachment to derail a huge corruption probe. Planning Minister Romero Juca said in a hurried appearance before television cameras that he would step aside from Tuesday. Although he ...

  HANOI / AP US President Barack Obama on Monday lifted a half-century-old ban on selling arms to Vietnam, looking to bolster a government seen as a crucial, though flawed partner in a region that he has tried to place at the center of his foreign policy legacy. Obama announced the full removal of the embargo at a news conference ...

  Tokyo / AFP Barack Obama will not apologise for the atomic bombing of Hiroshima when he this week becomes the first sitting US president to visit the city, he told Japanese television. The comments are the clearest yet from his administration over an issue that raises hackles in the United States and has been the subject of heated debate ...

  Athens / AFP Greece is planning a police operation early Tuesday to evacuate the squalid migrant camp of Idomeni on its border with Macedonia, a report said on Monday. Citing police sources, Greek TV station Mega said police reinforcements had been dispatched from Athens to help relocate some 8,500 people from the camp where thousands of migrants and refugees ...

  Istanbul / AFP Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan urged on Monday that the burden of responding to the world’s crises be more evenly shared, as leaders and aid groups gathered in Istanbul seeking to transform the global humanitarian aid system. The over 60 heads of state and government gathered for the two-day summit convened by UN Secretary General Ban ...

  Bangkok/ AFP Seventeen girls died after a fire swept through the dormitory of a school for children of hill tribes in northern Thailand, officials said on Monday, with a survivor describing fleeing as flames engulfed the building. The fire started late Sunday night, meaning many of the children at the school run by a Christian charity were asleep as ...

  Nicosia/ AFP Cypriots disaffected by three years of economic downturn have protested at the polls, staying away in droves and electing two far-right lawmakers in an echo of the populist wave sweeping Europe. Final results released on Monday showed that 3.7 percent of voters backed the National Popular Front (ELAM), a party which defends the Athens-inspired coup of 1974 ...

  Seoul / AFP South Korea on Monday rejected the latest proposal by the North to hold military talks, saying Pyongyang first needed to take steps towards abandoning its nuclear arsenal. The North’s leader Kim Jong-Un offered the military dialogue during a speech to a recent congress of the ruling Workers’ Party—the first event of its kind for more than ...