Politics

  LONDON / AP Greater Manchester’s mayor has called for an inquiry into a security alert triggered by a fake bomb left behind at a sports stadium after a training exercise. The discovery of the dummy bomb on Sunday prompted the evacuation of Manchester United’s stadium, Old Trafford. Police say the device discovered in a toilet just before kickoff had ...

  Amman / AFP Human Rights Watch urged Jordan on Monday to lift recent “restrictions” on transit through its territory of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, but the authorities in Amman denied any policy change. Since August 2015, “Palestinians from Gaza have found it increasingly difficult to get permission to transit through Jordan to travel abroad, without any explanation for the ...

  Yangon / AFP Myanmar police on Monday said they have begun legal action against five protesters over a weekend rally intended to promote religious tolerance. The move came as rights groups raise concerns about efforts by the new pro-democracy government to amend draconian laws on demonstrations. Dozens of activists and students marched through Yangon in a rare gesture of religious ...

  Davao / AFP Philippine president-elect Rodrigo Duterte vowed on Monday to introduce executions by hanging as part of a ruthless law-and-order crackdown that would also include ordering military snipers to kill suspected criminals. In back-to-back press conferences since his landslide victory in May 9 elections, the tough-talking mayor of southern Davao city said security forces would be given “shoot-to-kill” ...

  Lagos / AFP Nigeria’s government will meet union leaders to try to prevent a planned national strike over a 67 percent hike in the price of petrol, the labour ministry said on Monday. Ministry spokesman Samuel Olowookere said the talks would take place in Abuja at 3:00 pm (1400 GMT) and involve government officials, the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) ...

  Aden / AFP A suicide bombing claimed by the IS group and a second attack killed 37 police on Sunday in the Yemeni port of Mukalla where a year of Al-Qaeda rule ended last month, medics said. It was the second attack in days claimed by IS in the city of 200,000 people that was recaptured by government forces ...

  Beirut / AFP Fighting raging between rival extremist rebel factions to control a key opposition stronghold near Damascus since late last month has killed more than 300 fighters, a monitor said on Sunday. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the clashes in Eastern Ghouta pitted Jaish Al-Islam faction, which has been taking part in peace talks in Geneva, against ...

  Baghdad / AFP Suicide attackers broke into a gas plant north of Baghdad on Sunday, killing at least seven people and setting fire to gas tanks, officials said. The attack on the Taji plant, about 20 kilometres (12 miles) north of the capital, took place at around 6 am (0300 GMT). Eight suicide bombers broke into the gas plant ...

  Ankara/ AFP Members of Turkey’s right-wing MHP party were prevented from holding a congress on Sunday aimed at unseating longtime leader Devlet Bahceli and recovering ground lost to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s party. Dissidents from the Nationalist Movement Party launched a campaign to oust Bahceli, 68, after a general election in November in which the party shed half its support—taking ...

  Jerusalem / AFP Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday he told the French foreign minister that Paris’s support of a UNESCO resolution on Jerusalem cast doubt on the impartiality of a peace initiative it is promoting. “I told him that the scandalous resolution accepted at UNESCO with France’s support, that does not recognise the bond of thousands of ...