Politics

Obama to make historic visit to Hiroshima

  Washington / AFP Barack Obama will this month become the first sitting US president to visit atomic bomb-struck Hiroshima, but the White House said he will not offer an apology for the devastating attack on the Japanese city in 1945. Obama, accompanied by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, will make the deeply symbolic visit on May 27, after attending a ...

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1 killed in ‘apparently extremist’ attack at Germany train station

  Munich / AFP A man killed one person and wounded three others in a knife attack at a German railway station Tuesday that prosecutors said had “an apparent extremist motive”. It is Germany’s third knife attack with an apparent extremist motivation since September. Police said they had arrested a 27-year-old German man who had slashed four people around 5 ...

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Afghan, international forces free ex-Pakistan PM’s hostage son

  Islamabad / AP Afghan and international forces freed the kidnapped son of a former Pakistani prime minister during a raid on an Al-Qaeda cell in Afghanistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan said Tuesday, three years after he was kidnapped in a hail of bullets. Ali Haider Gilani, son of Yousaf Raza Gilani, was “released from the terrorists” during the raid in ...

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Israel boycott campaigner ‘prevented from travel’

  Jerusalem / AFP Israeli authorities have refused to renew the travel documents of a leader of a campaign to boycott the Jewish state, officials said on Tuesday. Omar Barghouti is one of the most prominent campaigners in the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, which campaigns for a global boycott of Israel until, amongst other demands, the country withdraws ...

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N Korea party congress pushes nuclear weapons expansion

  Pyongyang / AFP North Korea’s first ruling party congress for nearly 40 years formally endorsed leader Kim Jong-un’s policy of expanding the country’s nuclear arsenal, as South Korea on Monday dismissed his proposals for military talks and improved ties. The congress, which opened on Friday, has largely been seen as an elaborate coronation for the 33-year-old Kim, securing his status ...

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Iran test-fires ballistic missile, latest after N-deal

  Tehran / AP Iran test-fired another ballistic missile, the latest in a spate of tests following the implementation of the nuclear deal with world powers earlier this year, according to a report Monday by the country’s semi-official Tasnim news agency. The test-firing of the missile, with a range of 2,000 kilometers, or 1,250 miles, was carried out two weeks ...

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49 people killed in Rwanda landslides amid rains

  KIGALI / AP A Rwandan government official says at least 49 people have been killed by landslides in the country’s north following heavy rains on Saturday and Sunday. Disaster Management and Refugee Affairs Minister Seraphine Mukantabana told The Associated Press Monday that torrential rains in the area about 80 kilometers (50 miles) from the capital, Kigali, had destroyed several ...

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Yemen president criticises explusions from Aden

  Aden / AFP Yemen’s president has criticised what he called the “unacceptable” expulsion from Aden of hundreds of people originating from the north, after loyalists drove Iran-backed rebels out of the southern city. “The individual acts of expelling citizens of Taez and other cities (from Aden) is unacceptable,” President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi said late Sunday, quoted by the official ...

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Israeli soldier on trial for killing ‘prone Palestinian’

  JAFFA / AFP An Israeli soldier went on trial before a military court on Monday, charged with manslaughter after he was caught on video fatally shooting a wounded Palestinian attacker in the West Bank two months ago. The rare case of an active serviceman being charged has polarized Israel, with defense officials criticizing the soldier’s conduct and large segments of ...

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Trial of ‘terror cell’ begins in Belgium

  Brussels / AFP Belgium on Monday began the trial of seven alleged extremists accused of links to the terror cell behind the Paris and Brussels attacks. The men were arrested after a deadly raid in the Belgian town of Verviers in January 2015 which exposed an alleged plan to kill police officers. A further nine people who are still ...

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