Politics

  KUALA LUMPUR / AP North Korea barred Malaysians from exiting its borders and Malaysia followed suit on Tuesday, turning ordinary citizens into pawns in the diplomatic battle surrounding the investigation into the bizarre death of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s half brother. The tit-for-tat directives come as relations between the two countries disintegrate over the poisoning of Kim ...

  SEOUL / AP North Korea on Monday fired four banned ballistic missiles that flew about 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) on average, with three of them landing in waters that Japan claims as its exclusive economic zone, South Korean and Japanese officials said. The test-launches appeared to be a reaction to huge US-South Korean military drills that those countries consider ...

  BEIRUT / AP US-backed Syrian fighters on Monday cut the main road between the northern Syrian city of Raqqa, which is controlled by the IS group, and the eastern city of Deir el-Zour, which is partially held by IS, as they press against the extremists’ territory in Syria. But despite the fresh blockade on the Raqqa-Deir el-Zour road, IS ...

  PESHAWAR / AP Militants attacked several Pakistani military posts in tribal regions along the Afghan border, killing six soldiers, the army said on Monday. Pakistani troops repulsed the attackers, who had crossed overnight from Afghanistan into the Mohmand tribal region where three military posts were ambushed, the army statement said. It added that 10 of the attackers were believed ...

  KUALA LUMPUR / AP Malaysia is protecting its “sovereignty and dignity” by expelling the North Korean ambassador, the prime minister said on Monday, as relations between the countries unraveled further over the poisoning of Kim Jong Nam, the estranged half brother of North Korea’s leader. North Korea announced shortly before the deadline for its ambassador to leave Malaysia on ...

  MOSCOW / AP Claims by President Donald Trump that his phones were wiretapped by his predecessor, Barack Obama, during the 2016 election campaign are a purely domestic matter for the United States, the spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Monday. The claim came amid revelations about contacts between Trump aides and Russia’s ambassador to the U.S., both ...

  MANILA / AP A retired Philippine police officer testified on Monday that President Rodrigo Duterte and his men were linked to nearly 200 killings that the officer and a “death squad” carried out when Duterte was mayor of a southern city. Arturo Lascanas outlined at a Senate inquiry some of the key killings he and others allegedly staged “with ...

  BERLIN / AP Germany’s government on Monday condemned remarks by Turkey’s president accusing officials of “Nazi practices,” days after a local authority prevented a Turkish minister from addressing a rally there. Chancellor Angela Merkel’s chief of staff called Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s statements “absolutely unacceptable.” “Germany cannot be outmatched regarding the rule of law, tolerance and liberalism,” he ...

  KUALA LUMPUR / AP Malaysia said on Sunday that its expulsion of North Korea’s ambassador was intended to warn Pyongyang that it cannot manipulate the investigation into the killing of the North Korean leader’s half brother. The government on Saturday gave Ambassador Kang Chol 48 hours to leave the country after he refused to apologize for his strong accusations ...

  KENT / AP Police in a Seattle suburb say they are seeking a white gunman after an Indian Sikh man reported he was shot in the arm and told to “go back to your own country.” India’s foreign minister said on Twitter early Sunday that the victim is identified as Deep Rai and that he told police he was ...