Politics

  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 ...

  BANJA LUKA / AP Tens of thousands of people are rallying in separate demonstrations for and against the regional Bosnian Serb government in the city Banja Luka. Participants in the two protests are being kept apart by police barricades to prevent them from clashing. The pro-EU Alliance for Changes is accusing the Bosnian Serb government of corruption and its ...

  Kandahar / AFP A Taliban suicide bomber detonated an explosive-laden car at a police training centre in the opium-rich southern province of Helmand on Saturday, killing at least three people and wounding nine others, officials said. The attack in Nad Ali district comes in the midst of the Taliban’s annual spring offensive launched last month, in what is expected ...

  Skopje / AFP Macedonia’s former and possible next prime minister Nikola Gruevski says his party is preparing to stand in an early election next month despite a boycott by his opponents and international disapproval. Gruevski, who had stepped down in January after 10 years in power to make way for the vote, said that the troubled Balkan country could ...

  Uganda / AP Uganda’s main opposition leader has been charged with treason and jailed in a remote area in the country’s northeast, a judiciary spokesman said on Saturday. KizzaBesigye was handed charges late Friday stemming from his public attacks on the legitimacy of President YoweriMuseveni, who won a disputed election in February, said Solomon Muyita. Besigye, a qualified physician, ...

  Paris / AFP Frontline climate diplomats will seek to translate good intentions into concrete action in Bonn on Monday when they gather for the first time since hammering through a historic deal in December. “Our challenge is now to operationalize the Paris Agreement,” France and Morocco—currently co-chairs of the negotiating process—said in a briefing note. After two decades of ...