Politics

  New Delhi / AFP India will seek to extradite indebted tycoon Vijay Mallya, the country’s finance minister said on Wednesday, after Britain turned down its request to deport him. Arun Jaitley told parliament that Britain had refused to deport Mallya, who left India owing $1.34 billion, because he entered the country on a valid passport, even though it was ...

  Juba / AFP The freed son of a former Pakistani premier reunited with his family in a shower of rose petals in Lahore on Wednesday, three years after he was kidnapped then taken to Afghanistan. Ali Haider Gilani, son of Yousaf Raza Gilani, was rescued during a counter-terror raid by US and Afghan forces in eastern Afghanistan Tuesday. Crowds ...

  London / AFP Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari said on Wednesday that he did not want an apology from Prime Minister David Cameron for calling his country “fantastically corrupt”, but said Britain could return assets stolen by officials who fled to London. “I am not going to demand any apology from anybody. What I am demanding is the return of ...

  Baghdad / AFP Three car bombs in Baghdad, including a huge blast at a market in a Shiite area, killed at least 86 people on Wednesday, the bloodiest day in the Iraqi capital this year. The attacks, the deadliest of which was claimed by the IS group, came with the government locked in a political crisis that some have ...

  Tokyo / AFP Barack Obama’s trip to Hiroshima this month is a chance for him to see how the city suffered after its atomic bombing, and to renew his push for global nuclear disarmament, local officials said on Wednesday. On May 27, Obama will become the first sitting US president to visit Hiroshima, the White House said on Tuesday, ...

  Aleppo / AFP The Syrian army exchanged fire with rebels in battleground second city Aleppo even before the expiry at midnight on Wednesday of a Russian- and US-brokered ceasefire. Two people were wounded early Wednesday when regime aircraft strafed rebel positions in two eastern neighbourhoods of the divided city with heavy machinegun fire, an AFP correspondent reported. Late Tuesday, ...

  Dhaka / AP Clashes erupted in Bangladesh on Wednesday after the execution of a top hardliner leader, heightening tension in a country reeling from a string of killings of secular and liberal activists. Motiur Rahman Nizami, leader of the Jamaat-E-Islami party, was hanged at a Dhaka jail late Tuesday for the massacre of intellectuals during the 1971 independence war ...

Madrid / AFP Spain’s foreign minister on Wednesday described the EU’s deal with Turkey to stem the influx of migrants as a “botched job”, blasting Europe’s “inadequate” response to its worst migration crisis since World War II. Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo said he was unhappy with leaving the solution to the crisis in the hands of a country outside the European ...

  Berlin / AFP Germany’s foreign minister said he hoped the warring sides in Ukraine’s conflict could agree to extend a shaky truce, ahead of peace talks in Berlin later Wednesday. Frank-Walter Steinmeier said he also wanted negotiators to move forward on organising local elections in eastern Ukraine, warning that each round of fruitless talks risks undermining a fragile peace ...

  London / AFP Queen Elizabeth II was caught on camera describing some Chinese officials as “very rude” in a rare diplomatic gaffe by the long-serving British monarch over a state visit that drummed up billions in Chinese investment. Her comments, aired on Wednesday, came just hours after Prime Minister David Cameron on Tuesday also made inadvertently public remarks, referring ...