Politics

  Kuwait City / AP Yemen’s warring parties are to resume face-to-face peace talks on Wednesday after a three-day break triggered by a walkout by the government delegation, the United Nations said. The negotiations, which began on April 21, broke off on Sunday after the government delegation quit in protest at the apparent surrender of one of the few loyalist bases ...

  Mukalla / AFP Ten days after Gulf-backed forces drove Al-Qaeda out of the Yemeni port city of Mukalla, the signs of their harsh year-long rule are still everywhere for relieved residents to see. Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula took advantage of the chaos of fighting between pro-government forces and Iran-backed rebels to expand its control in southern Yemen, seizing ...

  INDIANAPOLIS / AP Once dismissed as a fringe contender, businessman Donald Trump now is all but certain to lead the Republican Party into the fall presidential campaign against Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton — a stunning political triumph for a first-time candidate whose appeal to frustrated voters was widely underestimated. Trump’s victory in Indiana on Tuesday and Ted Cruz’s abrupt ...

  Jakarta / AFP Indonesia is preparing for a new round of executions, police said on Wednesday, around a year after Jakarta sparked global outrage by putting seven foreign drug convicts to death by firing squad. Officials recently started getting ready after an order from the attorney-general’s office, which oversees executions, said Central Java police spokesman Aloysius Lilik Darmanto. He ...

  Kuala Lumpur / AFP Malaysian authorities are searching for three foreigners who went missing in waters near the Philippines where a spate of recent kidnappings have taken place, a coast guard official said on Wednesday. The official cautioned there was so far no cause to suspect the abduction of the foreigners, who went missing late Monday along with a ...

  Rio De Janeiro / AFP Brazil’s top prosecutor has asked the Supreme Court to open a probe into alleged obstruction of justice by President Dilma Rousseff, Brazilian media reported, in a potentially explosive twist to the country’s political crisis. According to reports in the Globo, Folha de Sao Paulo and Estadao dailies, chief prosecutor Rodrigo Janot has requested authority to ...

Moscow / AFP Russia’s defence minister said on Wednesday that Moscow will set up three new divisions in the west and south of the country by the end of the year to counter NATO forces close to its border. “The defence ministry is taking a range of measures with the aim of countering the build-up of NATO forces in close proximity ...

  Harare / AFP Drought-hit Zimbabwe has invited local farmers and private game rangers to buy wild animals as it destocks national game reserves to save fauna from starvation, the wildlife authority said Wednesday. Parks and wildlife authority spokeswoman Caroline Washaya said it has asked individuals and private game keepers to step in and buy wild animals “in the light ...

  London / AFP The Scottish National Party heads into regional elections on Thursday hoping to strengthen its clout and secure a mandate to demand independence if Britain leaves the European Union. Victory in the vote could allow the SNP to consolidate a historic triumph in general elections in May 2015, when it swept 56 out of Scotland’s 59 seats ...

  Moscow / AFP Desperate efforts to salvage Syria’s ceasefire shifted to Moscow on Tuesday as the country’s battered second city of Aleppo came under fresh fire that killed at least four people. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was due to hold talks with UN envoy Staffan de Mistura in the Russian capital in a last-ditch bid to rescue peace negotiations that ...