Politics

Iraq / AP Fighting between Iraqi forces and militants affiliated with the IS group close to Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, has displaced over 2,000 people in the past week. On one recent night, around a hundred people arrived on the outskirts of the town of Makhmour, in Iraq’s semi-autonomous northern Kurdish region, having fled violence. The journey ended in ...

India / AFP A special court in India has sentenced 47 policemen to life in prison for killing a group of Sikh pilgrims in 1991 whom they had claimed were militants, a prosecutor said on Tuesday. The officers were convicted of shooting dead the pilgrims to try and earn promotions in Uttar Pradesh state which at the time was hit ...

Ankara / AFP German Chancellor Angela Merkel will next week inaugurate a new centre for Syrian refugees in the southeastern Turkish city of Kilis built with EU funds, Turkey’s prime minister said on Tuesday. “We are going to inaugurate a school and a hospital built in Kilis thanks to EU financing with European leaders led by Mrs Merkel,” said Turkish ...

Kabul / AFP Global military spending has begun rising in real terms for the first time since the US began its withdrawal of troops from wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. Defense budgets rose 1 percent to $1.68 trillion in 2015, making up about 2.3 percent of the world’s gross domestic product, Sipri ...

Turkey / AFP Turkey is to receive around 200 more migrants from Greece on Wednesday under a controversial deal with the EU after taking in a similar number at the start of this week, a Turkish official said. The new wave of around 200 migrants would be shipped from the Greek island of Lesbos into the Turkish harbour town of ...

Turkey / afp Residents of Tripoli have started to breathe a little easier since the head of a new unity government came to town promising a way out of Libya’s political and economic crises. Prime minister-designate Fayez Al Sarraj’s arrival last Wednesday came at a time of sandstorms combined with fears of clashes between rival armed groups that have failed ...

Vienna / AFP Talks to end the worst violence in decades in the disputed territory of Nagorny Karabakh kicked off in Vienna on Tuesday. The meeting gathered Russia, the United States and France in the so-called Minsk Group, spearheading attempts to end a low-key conflict that revived bloodily and dangerously last Friday. Analysts say the crisis could set a spark ...

Seoul / AFP An official North Korean website released a new propaganda video portraying a multiple rocket attack on South Korea’s presidential Blue House and other government buildings in Seoul. It was uploaded on Monday to the DPRK Today website, which had released another video 10 days before depicting a nuclear attack on Washington. Tensions have been rising on the ...

BEIJING / AFP China has imposed restrictions on imports of North Korea coal and sales to the North of jet fuel under UN sanctions imposed in response to Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile tests. The sanctions announced on Tuesday allow some imports of North Korean coal, iron ore and other materials for civilian use. But they ban any trade connected to ...

Yangon / AFP Myanmar foreign minister Aung San Suu Kyi met her Chinese counterpart in Naypyidaw on Tuesday, an official said, as relations with Beijing take centre stage in the first diplomatic foray of her newly installed pro-democracy government. The Southeast Asian nation sees its giant neighbour—and largest trading partner—as its biggest foreign policy preoccupation with border wars and controversial ...