Politics

  New Delhi / AP India’s foreign ministry said on Thursday it has asked Britain to deport the embattled former airline boss Vijay Mallya, who faces a money laundering investigation. Mallya, a part-owner of the Force India Formula 1 team who used to run a liquor empire, left India on March 2 owing more than $1 billion and is believed ...

  Belgrade / AFP Serbia’s electoral commission has asked some voters to recast their ballots after both opposition groups and powerful Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic, who won by a landside, disputed the regularity of the weekend polls. The repeat votes at 15 polling stations, likely to take place next week, mean the final results of Sunday’s general election will not ...

  Jakarta / AFP Indonesia hopes next week to secure an agreement with Malaysia and the Philippines on conducting joint military patrols on the high seas where militants have been on a kidnapping spree, an official said on Thursday. The plight of hostages held by the Abu Sayyaf militant group could also be on the agenda when the foreign ministers ...

  Seoul / AFP North Korea on Thursday tried and failed in what appeared to be its second attempt in two weeks to test a powerful, new medium-range ballistic missile, South Korea’s defence ministry said. A ministry official said the North had fired what was understood to be a Musudan missile at around 6:40 am (2140 GMT Wednesday) from Wonsan ...

  Vostochny / AFP Russia launched the first rocket from its new Vostochny cosmodrome on Thursday, with President Vladimir Putin hailing the event after dressing down officials over a delay caused by a technical glitch. The launch is a major milestone for Russia’s beleaguered space sector, with the new spaceport in the far east of the country touted to mark ...

  New Delhi / AFP Chinese dissident Lu Jinghua said Thursday New Delhi cancelled her visa to travel to India to meet the Dalai Lama, just days after another Chinese activist was blocked after protest from Beijing. Lu, who fled China following the Tiananmen Square crackdown in 1989, said she had been granted a tourist visa to travel from her ...

  Vienna/ AFP The Austrian parliament voted on Wednesday on adopting some of Europe’s toughest asylum laws, as the country’s political leaders struggle to halt the surging far-right which triumphed in a weekend presidential poll. The hotly-disputed bill would let the government declare a “state of emergency” over the migrant crisis and reject most asylum-seekers, including from war-torn countries like ...

  BEIRUT / AP Militants from the IS group seized five villages from Syrian rebels close to the Turkish border on Wednesday, further weakening the rebels’ foothold in the Aleppo area. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a network of activists monitoring the Syria conflict, said the extremist group took five villages in Azaz district, north of Aleppo, where ...

  SYDNEY/ AFP Sudanese refugee Aliir Aliir will complete an extraordinary journey when he makes his debut for the Sydney Swans against Brisbane on Sunday in Australian Rules football. The 21-year-old Aliir was born in a Kenyan refugee camp to parents who fled war-torn Sudan and arrived in Australia as a small child. He played soccer and basketball before taking ...

  Berlin / AFP Germany announced on Wednesday it is replacing the head of its foreign intelligence service, which has been rocked by revelations it helped the US National Security Agency spy on European targets. Gerhard Schindler, 63, will take early retirement from July 1, leaving the reins of the BND service to Bruno Kahl, a trained lawyer and currently high-ranking ...