Politics

Seoul / AFP Chancellor Angela Merkel’s party braced for a backlash in key state polls on Sunday over the German leader’s liberal refugee policy, while the right-wing populist AfD prepared to scoop up the protest vote from angry voters. More than 12 million voters headed to the ballot box to elect three new regional parliaments for the southwestern states of ...

Bloomberg President Barack Obama has narrowed to three finalists a list of potential US Supreme Court nominees to replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia, all of them federal appeals judges, according to a person familiar with the matter. The candidates are Merrick Garland, Sri Srinivasan and Paul Watford, said the person, who asked not to be identified because the details ...

Chicago / AFP Donald Trump is under fire from rivals who blamed his incendiary rhetoric for a violent outbreak Friday between protestors and supporters at the Republican frontrunner’s rally in Chicago. Trump cancelled the event after demonstrators scuffled with his supporters and police struggled to maintain order, with hundreds of protesters showing up. “When you have a campaign that affirmatively ...

PARIS / AFP Europe and Russia are set to launch an unmanned spacecraft on Monday to smell Mars’ atmosphere for gassy evidence that life once existed on the Red Planet, or may do so still. ExoMars 2016, the first of a two-phase Mars exploration, will see an orbiter hoisted from Kazakhstan at 0931 GMT Monday on a Russian Proton rocket. ...

Havana / AFP The European Union and Cuba signed a deal to normalize relations, including an agreement on the delicate issue of human rights—a breakthrough just ahead of US President Barack Obama’s historic visit to the island. The agreement, the culmination of nearly two years of negotiations, is a further step toward ending the communist country’s status as a pariah ...

BLOOMBERG Hundreds of thousands of Brazilians are gearing up to march in Sunday’s anti-government protests, which could tip the balance against President Dilma Rousseff in her struggle to remain in office. As of Friday evening, more than 360,000 people had signed up on a Facebook page pledging to take part in opposition marches, a 20 percent increase from Thursday morning. ...

BEIRUT / AP After five years of bloodshed — after a quarter of a million deaths, and the flight of millions of refugees — Syria has arrived at a critical juncture: A diplomatic framework is in place to end the carnage, a two-week-old partial ceasefire is holding, and peace talks are set to resume in coming days. “The indicators from ...

Athens / AFP Greece aims to deal swiftly with the migrant overflow at the Idomeni refugee camp on the Greek-Macedonian border where some 12,000 people are camping in miserable conditions waiting to cross. “I hope the situation at Idomeni is resolved within a week without recourse to force,” Mega television on Saturday quoted Dimitris Vitsas, the minister charged with coordinating ...

London / AFP Britain said on Saturday it was sending more troops to Iraq to bolster its mission training up the armed forces taking on the IS extremist group. Defence Secretary Michael Fallon said a further 30 troops would be deployed to provide training in logistics and bridge-building, as well as specialist medical staff. The move would take the total ...

France / AFP French police arrested 14 people on Saturday after a far-right group took to the streets for an anti-immigrant rally in the port town of Calais, where thousands of migrants are living in improvised camps. The roughly 80 activists blocked off two bridges close to the city centre and burned tyres, waved banners and set off smoke bombs, ...