Politics

  ANKARA / AP Opposition figures in Turkey say they have faced threats, violence, arbitrary detentions, a lack of TV airtime and even sabotage in the campaign for a referendum on expanding the president’s powers. The complaints come even as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan himself has slammed European countries for not letting his ministers campaign on their soil for ...

  CAIRO / AP Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sissi and US President Donald Trump will meet in Washington next month, Egypt’s leading state-owned newspaper said on Sunday. Al-Ahram said in a front-page report the two leaders will meet during the first week of April, in what will be El-Sissi’s first visit to Washington since taking office in 2014. El-Sissi and Trump ...

  BAGHDAD / AP Iraqi government forces have pushed into the area around a highly symbolic mosque in western Mosul where the IS group’s leader made his first and only public appearance. Black smoke billowed from the area around al-Nuri mosque, also known as the Great Mosque, Sunday as helicopters fired into the militants’ positions. At least two large mushroom ...

  NEW DELHI / AP A hard-line Hindu religious leader was sworn in on Sunday as the chief minister of India’s most populous state. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other leaders of India’s ruling party attended a ceremony in the Uttar Pradesh state capital of Lucknow, where Yogi Adityanath took the oath of office. Adityanath is a five-time member of ...

  BEIJING / AP The United States is looking forward to the first meeting between President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said on Sunday, on the final day of a swing through Asia dominated by concerns over North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs. In talks with Xi in Beijing, Tillerson said Trump ...

  SITTWE / AP Hundreds of hard-line Buddhists in a Myanmar state wracked by religious violence protested against the government’s plan to give citizenship to some members of the persecuted Rohingya Muslim minority community. Rakhine state’s dominant Arakan National Party led the protest in Sittwe, the state capital, where many Rohingya lived before an outbreak of inter-communal violence in 2012 ...

  MANILA / AP Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said on Sunday that his militarily inferior country can’t stop China’s actions in contested waters, responding to a reported plan by Beijing to construct an environmental monitoring station in a disputed shoal off the northwestern Philippines. Duterte, however, warned that he would invoke a July 12 arbitration ruling that invalidated China’s territorial ...

  BEIJING / AP US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Saturday pushed for closer China-US cooperation on dealing with North Korea’s nuclear program in his first face-to-face talks with top Chinese diplomats. Tillerson’s visit to Beijing followed his remarks in South Korea on Friday in which he warned that pre-emptive military action against North Korea might be necessary if ...

  MOSCOW / AP Russia’s lower house of parliament is launching an investigation into US news media that operate in Russia, a move that comes amid growing suspicion in America of Russian interference. A statement on the website of the chamber, the Duma, does not specify how the investigation would be conducted or what might be done with its results. ...

  LONDON / AP Former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown says Scotland should get more sweeping powers but remain in the United Kingdom. Brown entered the fray over the region’s future on Saturday with a speech in Scotland saying Brexit makes the case for Scottish independence weaker, not stronger. He said Scotland should be able to set some tax rates, ...