Politics

Geneva / AFP UN chief Ban Ki-moon on Wednesday called for greater global efforts to tackle the Syrian refugee crisis, as he opened a conference on securing resettlement places for nearly half a million of those displaced by the five-year conflict. “We are here to address the biggest refugee and displacement crisis of our time,” Ban told the conference in ...

Vietnam / AFP Vietnam jailed three women on Wednesday on charges of spreading anti-state propaganda after they waved the flag of the former US-backed South Vietnam regime, state media said. A court in Ho Chi Minh City found the women guilty of carrying out “propaganda against the socialist Republic of Vietnam,” the official ThanhNien newspaper reported. The trio had waved ...

Bangui / AFP France will end its military intervention in the Central African Republic this year as it has achieved its objectives of restoring security to the country after three years of communal violence, the French defence minister said Wednesday. “I can confirm to you the end of Operation Sangaris during the course of 2016,” Jean-Yves Le Drian said in ...

Naypyidaw / AFP Myanmar entered a new era on Wednesday as Aung San SuuKyi’s democracy movement took power after 50 years of military domination, with a close aide of the Nobel Laureate sworn in as president. HtinKyaw, a school friend and confidante of the democracy champion, succeeds former general TheinSein who has helmed reforms that have transformed Myanmar from hermit ...

Ankara / AFP The European Union backs the European diplomats who attended a controversial trial of two Turkish journalists charged with espionage after their appearance was bitterly attacked by Ankara, an official said on Wednesday. Turkey issued a protest on Monday over comments on social media made by some diplomats present at the trial last week of the opposition Cumhuriyet ...

Paris / AFP French President Francois Hollande said on Wednesday he was scrapping contested constitutional reforms proposed after the Paris attacks, in an embarrassing U-turn for his already beleaguered government. The reforms included a plan to strip convicted terrorists of their French nationality which led to howls of protests from the left flank of his Socialist party. Hollande also wanted ...

Bloomberg A move by Brazil’s largest party to depart from the ruling coalition further weakened the government and raised the odds that President Dilma Rousseff will lose the impeachment vote. The latest blow capped a month in which the least popular president in decades faced a wave of massive protests, fought accusations that she tried to obstruct a corruption probe, ...

Berlin / AFP Russia is running a “shadow government” in rebel-held territories of eastern Ukraine under the control of the FSB intelligence service, German daily Bild reported on Wednesday, citing minutes from an official commission. The report said that basic administrative functions of the cities of Donetsk and Lugansk are being run by six working groups at five Russian ministries. ...

Moscow / AFP Russia launched an investigation on Wednesday after a police officer was killed and two were injured in a bomb attack in the volatile Dagestan region that was claimed by the IS group. Two explosive devices were detonated on a main road near the city of Kaspiysk late Tuesday as two police vehicles passed, Russian authorities said. The ...

Brussels / AFP Brussels airport said it would not reopen on Wednesday despite drills to test resuming partial services after the suicide bombings that struck its departure hall and a metro train, as Belgium lowered the death toll to 32. Zaventem airport has been closed since twin bombings wrecked the departure hall on March 22, in coordinated suicide attacks that ...