Politics

  Kirkuk / AFP Kurdish peshmerga forces and Turkmen Shiite paramilitaries were Sunday engaged in clashes that have killed at least nine people in a flashpoint town during the past 24 hours, officials said. Tuz Khurmatu, part of a swathe of territory claimed by both Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region and Baghdad, has been divided between Turkmen and Kurds since fighting ...

  London / AFP US President Barack Obama warned on Sunday that it would be a “mistake” to send Western troops into Syria to overthrow the regime of President Bashar Al Assad. In an interview with the BBC, he said the United States would continue strikes against the IS group while continuing efforts to broker a transition deal between the ...

SANAA / AP Hundreds of Yemeni troops loyal to the internationally recognized president have launched an operation to drive Al Qaida and IS fighters out of southern coastal areas the extremists have seized amid the country’s complex civil war, security officials said on Sunday. They said the forces loyal to President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi are receiving air support from ...

  Kathmandu / AFP Nepal held memorial services on Sunday for the thousands killed in a massive earthquake one year ago, as victims still huddled in tents across the country accused the government of failing them. Prime Minister K P Sharma Oli laid flowers at a destroyed 19th-century tower in Kathmandu, where hundreds gathered to remember the devastating quake that ...

  Seoul / AFP North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un hailed a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) test as an “eye-opening success”, state media said on Sunday, declaring Pyongyang has the ability to strike Seoul and the US whenever it pleases. Saturday’s launch came amid growing concern that Pyongyang is preparing a fifth nuclear test. But it was followed just hours later by ...

  Yangon / AFP Violent storms which saw hailstones the size of golf balls rain down across Myanmar have killed at least eight people in recent days, toppled pagodas and damaged thousands of buildings, officials said Sunday. The freak storms struck across five states on Friday and Saturday after weeks of heatwave temperatures regularly topping 40C (104F). “From what we know ...

  QUITO / AP The death toll from last week’s magnitude-7.8 earthquake that flattened towns along Ecuador’s coast has risen to 654 with another 58 people missing, the government said Saturday. The website of the secretariat for risk management said that 113 people had been rescued alive following the quake and more than 25,000 people remained in shelters. The death ...

  Belgrade / AFP Serbians began voting on Sunday in a general election that is likely to return pro-European Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic to power, but also give a voice in parliament to the pro-Russian far-right. While Vucic’s nominally conservative Serbian Progressive Party is projected to win about half of the votes, ultra-nationalists who want the Balkan country to deepen its ...

  Ankara / AFP A Dutch journalist was arrested early Sunday at her home in Turkey for tweets deemed critical of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, according to her Twitter account. “Police at the door. No joke,” wrote Ebru Umar, a well-known atheist and feminist journalist of Turkish origin. Umar recently wrote a piece critical of Erdogan for the Dutch ...

  Myrsini / AFP On a long beach framed by a golden Ionian Sea sunset, a group of Syrian boys shout for joy as they race across the sand, the horrors of war and exile they have witnessed briefly forgotten. As the sun finally sets, children make a beeline for a nearby square and mothers with prams step out for ...