Politics

Philippines / AFP A Philippine offensive against the extremist Abu Sayyaf group after a spate of kidnappings has left 18 soldiers and five fighters dead in the worst violence in the troubled south this year, authorities said on Sunday. Saturday’s clashes on the strife-torn island of Basilan came after an April 8 ransom deadline set by Abu Sayyaf, who had ...

Taipei / AFP Hundreds of Taiwanese rallied on Sunday to show support for retaining the death penalty, after the beheading of a child in a street attack shocked the island. Demonstrators dressed in black and held white roses in mourning for the four-year-old girl murdered on March 28 near a Taipei metro station. Many wore stickers reading “Death penalty is ...

BAGHDAD / Reuters A rallying cry to Iraqi Sunnis from former President Saddam Hussein’s top surviving aide aims to bolster the old ruling Baath party’s appeal with Sunni Muslims fearing new reprisals by Shi’ite militias, experts said. The footage purportedly featuring Ezzat Al-Douri was released on Thursday, the anniversary of the fall of Saddam’s Sunni-led rule when US troops stormed ...

Amsterdam / AFP Having survived perilous escapes from war zones, refugees find themselves assailed anew in Europe by germs proliferating in crowded, unsanitary camps that could become outbreak hotspots, infectious disease experts have warned. Their systems weakened by physical exhaustion, a lack of safe food, clean water and medicine, refugees are sitting-duck targets for entirely preventable diseases that can scar, ...

Hiroshima / AFP G7 foreign ministers on Sunday began two days of talks in Hiroshima, with John Kerry’s visit to the atom-bombed city—the first-ever by a US secretary of state—overshadowing the broader agenda. Kerry’s landmark trip is seen as possibly paving the way for Barack Obama to become the first serving US president to journey to the thriving metropolis next ...

MUMBAI / AP The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have begun a weeklong visit to India and Bhutan, their second major trip representing the British crown and their first royal tour in almost two years. Prince William and his wife, the former Kate Middleton, began their first engagement in India by laying a wreath at a memorial Sunday at Mumbai’s ...

Lima / AFP Three soldiers and a civilian were killed, and seven others wounded, in two attacks by guerrillas in the jungles of central Peru, on the eve of presidential elections. Authorities blamed remnants of the Shining Path communist guerrilla group, which was largely crushed in the 1990s but still has members hiding in the jungle. The three soldiers and ...

New Delhi / AFP A massive fire swept through a temple in southern India on Sunday, killing more than 100 people and injuring scores more after they gathered to watch an unofficial fireworks display. Thousands had packed overnight into the Hindu temple in Kerala state where fireworks appear to have landed on an unexploded stash, triggering a blast, in a ...

Istanbul / AFP The world’s Islamic countries began their annual meeting on Sunday in Istanbul, where they are set to focus on the Palestinian cause, conflicts in member states and combating terrorism. The meeting of the 57-member Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) comes once again at a time of turmoil in many Muslim nations, with conflicts in Syria and Yemen ...

Brussels / AFP The Brussels-based IS extremists behind the Paris attacks planned a fresh strike in France but targeted the Belgian capital instead as police closed in, the federal prosecutor said on Sunday. The prosecutor also announced that the so-called “man in the hat” Mohamed Abrini had been charged with “terrorist murders” over the attacks in Brussels last month. Suicide ...