Politics

  Baghdad / AFP A car bomb targeting Shiite pilgrims killed at least 14 people in southern Baghdad on Monday, security and medical sources said. An Iraqi security command said a suicide bomber detonated the explosives-rigged vehicle, while other officials said it was a car bomb. At least 14 people were killed and at least 41 others wounded, security and medical ...

  KUWAIT CITY / AP The United Nations envoy for Yemen says the country’s government delegation has suspended its participation in peace talks aimed at ending fighting in the impoverished Arab country. U.N. envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed said in a statement that the Yemeni government stopped participating in plenary sessions held in Kuwait on Sunday because of developments in the ...

  ISTANBUL / AP The Turkish military said on Monday that artillery shelling and drone attacks by the US-led coalition have struck IS positions in Syria and killed a total of 63 militants. The state-owned Anadolu Agency said the strikes took out multiple rocket launchers and gun positions. Four drones deployed from the Incirlik air base, a launching point for US-led ...

  Diyarbakir / AFP One Turkish soldier was killed and 20 others were wounded when a car bomb blamed on Kurdish militants exploded in the Kurdish-majority southeast, the army said on Monday. In a statement, the army said a total of 23 people were wounded in the blast which took place late on Sunday, 20 of them soldiers and three ...

  Tikamgarh / AFP As young boys plunge into a murky dam to escape the blistering afternoon sun, guards armed with guns stand vigil at one of the few remaining water bodies in a state hit hard by India’s crippling drought. Desperate farmers from a neighbouring state regularly attempt to steal water from the Barighat dam, forcing authorities in central ...

  Kolkata / AFP Four people were killed when the crude bombs they were making exploded in India’s West Bengal, where bitterly fought state elections are underway, a senior police official said on Monday. Another six people were injured in the explosion on Sunday night in a village about 360 kilometres (220 miles) north of Kolkata, close to the eastern ...

  Aleppo / AFP The United States demanded that Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad’s forces halt their bombardment of Aleppo and help restore a nationwide ceasefire, with Secretary of State John Kerry due to head to Geneva for talks on the conflict. Terrified residents fled a new wave of air strikes on rebel-held areas of the divided city as key regime backer ...

  BEIJING / AP Taiwanese officials have protested Malaysia’s deportation of 32 of the self-ruled island’s nationals to China to face wire fraud charges. The deportation follows the sending of nearly four dozen Taiwanese from Kenya to China last month, a case that has raised concerns Beijing is exerting diplomatic pressure over the island it considers its own territory. The Taiwanese ...

  Bashir / AFP Iraqi Kurdish and Turkmen Shiite forces have recaptured the town of Bashir from the IS extremist group, officials said. Pressure for an operation to retake the town had grown in March after IS launched a chemical attack from Bashir on the nearby town of Taza that killed at least three children. Kurdish peshmerga forces and Turkmen ...

  Ankara / AFP Turkish police on Sunday detained four suspected IS extremist who were allegedly planning an attack on May Day celebrations in the capital Ankara, the state-run Anatolia news agency said. Initial investigations showed that the four were Syrian citizens who had been in Ankara for some time, the agency added, without giving details on the nature of ...