Politics

  BANJUL / AP As Gambia enters a new era of democracy, President Adama Barrow has reiterated his commitment to ending human rights abuses in the country. “Orders have already been given for all those detained without trial to be released,” he said on Saturday before thousands of Gambians who gathered at Independence Stadium Saturday to witness his official inauguration ...

WASHINGTON / AP The apparent assassination of the North Korean leader’s estranged half-brother is strengthening bipartisan calls for the US to re-list North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism, a designation lifted nine years ago. Doing so would increase the country’s isolation, while potentially complicating any future diplomacy to halt its nuclear and missile programs. The US kept North ...

  BANJUL / AP Gambia’s new president was set to be inaugurated on Saturday as this tiny West African nation celebrates wider freedoms after a tense political standoff with its former leader. Several heads of state were scheduled to attend the ceremony for President Adama Barrow. He was sworn into office last month at Gambia’s embassy in neighboring Senegal as ...

  MINSK / AP In more than two decades in power, the leader of Belarus has cast his nation as Moscow’s closest ally, securing tens of billions of dollars in Russian subsidies. At the same time, President Alexander Lukashenko has skillfully exploited Russia’s security fears by occasionally reaching out to the West to win concessions from Moscow. Now, the Kremlin ...

  ISLAMABAD / AP Pakistani authorities shut down a second key border crossing into Afghanistan, halting trade supplies to the neighboring landlocked country and increasing tension between the two nations in the wake of a bloody suicide bombing at a beloved shrine in Pakistan, officials said on Saturday. The border closure at Chaman in Pakistan’s southwest Baluchistan province came after ...

  ISTANBUL / AP Turkish officials say 26 people have been detained following a car bomb attack, which killed two people in the southeast of the country. The car bomb exploded near the lodgings of judges and prosecutors in the mainly Kurdish town of Viransehir in Sanliurfa province, bordering Syria. Footage from the scene showed a heavily damaged building and ...

  MUNICH / AP UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres says that the US decision to block a former Palestinian prime minister from leading the UN political mission in Libya was “a serious mistake.” Washington blocked the proposed appointment of Salam Fayyad, the Palestinian Authority’s prime minister from 2007 to 2013, a week ago. It said it was acting to support its ...

  MUNICH / AP Vice President Mike Pence vowed on Saturday that the United States will “hold Russia accountable” even as President Donald Trump searches for new common ground with Moscow at the start of his presidency. Pence, in an address to the Munich Security Conference, also offered assurances to European allies that the US “strongly supports” NATO. He said ...

  Bloomberg Russia is testing NATO’s willingness to respond to provocation ahead of an expected meeting between President Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart Donald Trump, according to Estonian Defense Minister Margus Tsahkna. Russia’s build-up of forces and violations of international law, including in Ukraine, show the need for members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to increase spending on ...

  MOSCOW / AP Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu has reacted angrily to comments of US Secretary of Defense James Mattis who on Wednesday spoke of the need to negotiate with Russia “from a position of strength. The statement came just hours before Gen. Joe Dunford and Gen. Valery Gerasimov, the US and Russian Chiefs of Staff, were to hold ...