Politics

  Karang/ AFP Senegal and The Gambia will hold talks on Sunday aimed at ending a three-month border blockade that has created shortages of essential daily items on both sides of the frontier. Gambian authorities slapped a hundred-fold hike on fees for trucks entering its territory—which is completely surrounded by Senegal—without warning in February, infuriating Senegalese drivers who are now ...

Port-au-Prince / AFP The UN Security Council expressed “deep disappointment” with electoral gridlock in Haiti, a day in which the country had been slated to inaugurate a new president but did not due to an indefinitely postponed vote. Haiti’s presidential election has been repeatedly postponed, with the most recent vote, scheduled for April 24, never materializing and officials setting no ...

  Beirut / AFP Lebanese Shiite militant group Hezbollah on Saturday blamed extremists for killing its top military commander in Syria and vowed to keep fighting to defend President Bashar Al Assad’s regime. The movement has deployed thousands of fighters in Syria where Mustafa Badreddine had led its intervention in support of Assad’s forces, which are also backed by Russia and ...

  NEW DELHI / AP A court in India’s capital ruled Saturday that there’s enough evidence in a stalking and sexual harassment case for former UN climate chief Rajendra Pachauri to stand trial. Judge Shivani Chauhan announced that the next hearing in the case will be on July 11, the Press Trust of India news agency reported. Police filed charges against ...

  New Delhi / AFP Gunmen shot dead two journalists in 24 hours in separate incidents in eastern India, police and local reports said on Saturday, the latest media killing in Asia’s deadliest country for reporters. Rajdeo Ranjan, the local bureau chief for Hindi-language daily Hindustan, was travelling on his motorcycle late Friday in Bihar state when a group of ...

  Abuja / AFP Nigeria on Saturday hosted talks on Boko Haram with regional and Western powers, as the United Nations warned of the militants’ ties to the IS group and its threat to African security. Leaders from Benin, Cameroon, Chad and Niger were among the delegates, alongside French President Francois Hollande, and high-ranking diplomats from the United States, Britain ...

  Rome / AFP There were hardly any Syrian migrants among the 800 people rescued off Sicily, contrary to earlier reports from Italy’s coastguard, the UN and the International Organization for Migration have confirmed. The coastguard had said that half of the 342 migrants they had picked up were Syrians, sparking concern that the flow of Syrians previously attempting to ...

  Paris/ AFP On May 16, 1916, a secret pact carved up the floundering Ottoman Empire into spheres of British and French interest, foreshadowing the future map of the Middle East and, say critics, sowing the seeds of many of its problems. The Sykes-Picot agreement between the British and French governments for partitioning the empire’s Arab provinces was struck at ...

  Brazil / AFP Brazil’s acting president Michel Temer vowed to get Latin America’s largest economy back on track after a cascade of crises put an end to 13 years of leftist rule. Temer presided over the first meeting of his new business-friendly cabinet, setting out its priorities: creating a leaner government, balancing finances to address a crippling recession, and rooting ...

  Moscow / AFP A Russian yacht has been detained by North Korean coastguards in the Sea of Japan with five crew on board and towed in to land, Russian officials said on Saturday. “The North Korean side has communicated that the yacht has been taken to the port of Kimchaek,” Igor Agafonov, a foreign ministry official in the far-eastern ...