Politics

SAN FRANCISCO/ AP President Barack Obama praised Democratic lawmakers for having his back through some politically tough votes and encouraged supporters to help elect more of them in November. “A Democratic Congress is good for America,” he said Friday. Obama also criticized Senate Republicans for refusing to consider his Supreme Court nominee and said GOP presidential candidates Donald Trump and ...

Philippines / AFP A retired Italian priest held hostage for six months by suspected militants left a Philippine hospital on Saturday a day after his ordeal ended, looking frail though officials said he was in good health. His face partly hidden by a red baseball cap, Rolando Del Torchio stroked his grey beard and waved briefly before getting into an ...

Hanoi / AFP Vietnam’s rubber-stamp parliament approved 21 new minister positions on Saturday, state media reported, finishing off a leadership reshuffle among Communist top brass ahead of a visit by US President Barack Obama next month. The National Assembly approved three new deputy prime ministers and 18 other cabinet members, according to the legislature’s official website, concluding a change in ...

Washington / AFP Donald Trump may have a difficult but not improbable route to the Republican presidential nomination. When it comes to ultimate victory in November’s general election, however, the real estate tycoon faces a far more forbidding path. He still needs to repel the late revolt by rival Ted Cruz as the two gallop toward the campaign season’s final ...

Sudan / AFP Sudan’s conflict-hit Darfur region starts voting on Monday on whether to unify its five states, a long-standing demand of rebels seeking greater autonomy, but ongoing instability means insurgents are boycotting the referendum. The three-day vote is expected to maintain the five-state system, which President Omar Al Bashir’s ruling party says is more efficient but which observers say ...

Seoul / AFP North Korea said on Saturday it had successfully tested an engine designed for an inter-continental ballistic missile (ICBM) that would “guarantee” an eventual nuclear strike on the US mainland. It was the latest in a series of claims by Pyongyang of significant breakthroughs in both its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programmes. Outside experts have treated a ...

PENGJIA ISLET / AP President Ma Ying-jeou on Saturday visited a small island in the East China Sea to reassert Taiwan’s sovereignty and its role in the contested region, one of the key issues of his administration that ends next month. Ma’s visit on Saturday to Pengjia, roughly 35 miles (56 kilometers) north of Taiwan proper, was his administration’s second ...

Mogadishu / AFP Two members of Somalia’s Al-Qaeda-linked Shabab extremist group were executed by firing squad on Saturday for the murder of a journalist killed by a car bomb last year, a judge said. Abdirisak Mohamed Barow et Hassan Nur Ali, who admitted being Shebab members during their trial, were shot on Saturday morning in Mogadishu, Abdulahi Hussein Mohamed, deputy ...

CAIRO / AP The Saudi-led coalition behind a year-long military campaign against Yemen’s Shiite rebels is ready to commit to a cease-fire as long as the rebels abide by a UN Security Council resolution that calls for their pullout from Yemeni cities, the alliance’s spokesman said. Brig. Gen. Ahmed Al Asiri told The Associated Press that the Yemeni rebels known ...

Tehran / AFP Iran’s defence minister poured scorn on Saturday on US Secretary of State John Kerry’s accusations that Tehran is “destabilising” the Middle East, countering that America should get out of the region. The broadside illustrated new tension between Iran and the United States, despite last year’s nuclear deal, with contrasting stances on the conflicts in Yemen and Syria ...