Politics

  SEOUL / AP Former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Thursday he’ll soon announce whether to run for South Korea’s top job as he returned home and strongly hinted at his political ambitions before hundreds of cheering supporters. Ban’s return will likely heat up local politics as he’s considered as the only major conservative contender in a possible early ...

  HONG KONG / AP Hong Kong’s No 2 government official said on Thursday that she was resigning to prepare for a leadership bid for the southern Chinese city’s top job. Chief Secretary Carrie Lam said she tendered her resignation to Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying and asked him to submit it to Beijing for approval. Lam, 59, is the third ...

  Bloomberg US intelligence officials have informed President-elect Donald Trump about unsubstantiated reports they’ve received that the Russian government had compiled potentially damaging personal and financial information on him, a person familiar with the situation said. CNN reported earlier on Tuesday that as part of a briefing on Russian attempts to meddle in the presidential election, US spy chiefs included ...

  Beirut / AP Airstrikes in the northern Syrian province of Idlib killed at least 10 suspected al-Qaida-linked militants in Syria on Wednesday, the latest in a spate of targeted attacks against the group, activists said.The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 10 were killed when missiles struck two vehicles and three motorcycles in the airstrike in Saraqib, ...

  JERUSALEM / AP Israeli Arab leaders have called for a general strike in all their towns and villages in response to the demolition of 11 homes without proper permits by Israeli authorities. Lawmaker Yousef Jabareen on Wednesday called the demolition in the central city of Kalansua “unprecedented” and vowed to fight further measures. He said the source of the ...

  SKIEN / AP A government attorney says that Norwegian mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik, who killed 77 people in a bomb-and-shooting rampage, is in touch with fellow right-wing extremists from behind bars and must to be held in solitary confinement. During a government appeal against a court ruling last year that Breivik’s isolation in prison violates his human rights, ...

  Bloomberg Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni’s appointment of his son as a senior adviser may be a move to stem dissent in the governing party and prepare a successor to his 30-year rule. Museveni, who secured a fifth term in a 2016 vote, named Muhoozi Kainerugaba, the 42-year-old head of an elite military group, as his adviser for special operations. ...

  GENEVA / AP Talks to reunify long-divided Cyprus are on track to overcome major obstacles that have stood in the way of a peace accord for decades, the United Nations envoy for Cyprus said on Wednesday. But an immediate deal won’t be in the offing since important legal and technical details will have to be sorted out before an ...

  ISTANBUL / AP Turkey’s state-run news agency says that 60 businessmen have been arrested for suspected ties to the movement allegedly responsible for the failed coup in July. Anadolu says that 110 businessmen were brought before an Istanbul court Wednesday to be formally arrested on charges of “membership in a terrorist organization.” Fifty of them were given conditional release, ...

  BEIJING / AP China said on Wednesday it was committed to promoting peace and stability in Asia, even as it sent an aircraft carrier battle group through the Taiwan Strait amid heightened tensions between Beijing and the self-ruled island. The statement in the preface to a Cabinet report on China’s policies on Asia-Pacific security cooperation follows heated criticism from ...