Politics

Washington / AFP CIA Director John Brennan promised that the US spy agency won’t use so-called “enhanced interrogation” techniques, including waterboarding, against terror suspects—not even under a new president’s orders to do so. Brennan’s comments may have an impact on this year’s White House race, after Republican frontrunner Donald Trump said he would authorize waterboarding—which President Barack Obama banned shortly ...

Hiroshima / AFP The United States is prepared to “ratchet up” pressure on North Korea after its latest provocations but remains open to talks, US Secretary of State John Kerry said on Monday. “It is still possible we will ratchet up (the pressure) even more depending on the actions of the DPRK (North Korea),” Kerry told reporters after a G7 ...

Moscow / AFP Three suicide bombers blew themselves up outside a police station in southern Russia on Monday as they tried to storm the building, police said, but no other casualities were reported. “We were holding a meeting in the morning when five explosions went off,” Sergei Karamyshev, a senior police officer in the village of Novoselitskoye in the southern ...

Greece / AFP Greece on Monday lashed out at Macedonia for using “excessive force” after police fired tear gas and rubber bullets on migrants trying to breach the closed border to enter the EU. Macedonian police accused crowds of hurling stones and other objects at them on Sunday in a bid to break down a fence at the border with ...

Brazil / AfP An impeachment commission was due to vote on the fate of Brazilian President DilmaRousseff ahead of a vote by the lower house of Congress to decide whether she should go to trial. Bad-tempered debate, interrupted by heckling and chanting, kicked off in the commission in Brasilia while security forces mounted a huge operation outside to separate rival ...

Paris / AFP French Prime Minister Manuel Valls unveiled measures on Monday to help young people find work, aiming to quell weeks of protests against the government’s proposed reforms to labour laws. Young people have been at the forefront of mass demonstrations against the reforms over the past month, which the government argues are aimed at making France’s rigid labour ...

Marib / AFP A UN-brokered ceasefire was taking hold in Yemen on Monday, raising hopes that peace talks due next week may finally resolve the country’s devastating conflict. Forces loyal to President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi, the Shiite Houthi rebels who drove his government out of the capital, and the Saudi-led coalition that intervened in Yemen last year all pledged to ...

Jerusalem / AFP An Israeli colonel has been cleared of any criminal charges after shooting dead a Palestinian teen who stoned his jeep in the West Bank last year, the military said on Monday. A rights group that distributed a video showing the shooting denounced the decision, which comes amid controversy over a separate killing of a Palestinian by an ...

Beirut / AFP Syria’s Al-Qaeda affiliate and allied rebels pushed offensives around northern, central and coastal Syria on Monday, triggering a spike in violence that could threaten a truce ahead of peace talks, a monitoring group said. The IS group also took back control of the town of Al-Rai near Turkey, which rival rebels had captured last week, the Syrian ...

United Nations / AFP The next United Nations secretary general must commit to a new global deal for refugees and to end the death penalty during his or her tenure, the world’s leading human rights groups said on Monday. Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and four other groups also said the next UN chief should be prepared to invoke the ...