Politics

  PARIS / AP The most unpopular president in France’s modern history, Francois Hollande, is preparing the ground for a potential re-election bid. His leftist base is in open revolt, protesting youth are clashing with police nearly every night, and France is in a six-month state of emergency — yet he is on a new mission to convince the French ...

  Aleppo / AFP Displaced families returned home and schools reopened in rebel-held districts of Syria’s Aleppo on Saturday after a temporary truce was extended for 72 hours in the battleground northern city. Residents trickled back into eastern areas of Aleppo, encouraged by a halt in the deadly violence that hit last month, an AFP reporter said. More than 300 civilians ...

  Kathmandu / AFP Nepal has recalled its ambassador to India and cancelled an upcoming visit by its president to New Delhi, officials said on Saturday, further straining ties between the two neighbours after months of tension. Deep Kumar Upadhyay was recalled to Kathmandu late Friday after allegedly siding with the Nepali Congress opposition in supporting a threat by the Maoist ...

  Rabat / AFP A Moroccan court sentenced the younger brother of suspected Paris attacks ringleader Abdelhamid Abaaoud to two years in prison on charges including justifying terrorism, state media reported. According to his lawyer, Yassine Abaaoud was unaware of the activities of his brother, who was killed in a French police raid just days after the November 13 attacks ...

  Washington / AFP The Pentagon acknowledged for the first time that it has deployed US troops to Yemen since the country’s collapse last year to bolster government and Arab coalition forces battling Al-Qaeda. Spokesman Navy Captain Jeff Davis said the US military has also stepped up air strikes against fighters with Yemen-based Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). A “very ...

  Gaza City / AFP Israeli aircraft hit two Hamas targets in Gaza early on Saturday in response to rocket fire as the worst flare-up of violence since a 2014 war entered a fourth day. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the rocket launch and most such fire since 2014 has been carried out by fringe extremist groups but ...

  d r congo / Bloomberg The Democratic Republic of Congo said the developer for the first phase of the $100 billion Grand Inga hydropower project will be selected by August for construction to start by June next year. Two of the three groups that answered Congo’s 2010 call for bids remain in the running, Bruno Kapandji, head of the ...

  Astana / AFP US Secretary of State John Kerry warned Syria’s Bashar Al Assad of “repercussions” if his regime flouts a new truce under negotiation, as talks to halt the violence shifted to Berlin on Wednesday. Russia has said a new ceasefire to halt fighting in Aleppo could be imminent, with Syria’s divided northern city hit by a wave of ...

  Brussels/ AFP The EU on Wednesday gave conditional backing to visa-free travel for Turks under a migrant deal and unveiled new asylum rules including fines for countries that refuse their share of refugees. In its latest bid to tackle the biggest migration crisis since World War II, the European Commission proposed making countries pay a “solidarity contribution” of 250,000 ...

  STUTTGART / AP The combat death of an American Navy SEAL in Iraq shows that despite recent gains against the IS in Iraq, “this fight is far from over,” US Defense Secretary Ash Carter said on Wednesday. Carter spoke at the outset of a closed-door meeting in Germany with his counterparts from 11 countries contributing to the military campaign against ...