Politics

  United Nations / AFP The UN General Assembly agreed to set up a panel to gather evidence on war crimes in Syria, taking a first step towards prosecuting those responsible for atrocities in the nearly six-year war. A resolution on establishing the investigative mechanism was adopted in the 193-nation assembly by a vote of 105 to 15, with 52 ...

  Moscow/ AFP Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday called for the country to reinforce its military nuclear potential and praised the army’s performance in its Syria campaign. In a speech that recapped military activities in 2016, Putin said the army’s preparedness has “considerably increased” and called for continued improvement that would ensure it can “neutralise any military threat”. “We ...

  Moscow / AFP Russia’s defence minister on Thursday accused the British army of using Russian insignia to designate the enemy during training, a method he said was employed by Nazi Germany during World War II. Minister Sergei Shoigu said that British troops at the Salisbury Plain training facility “have started to use Russian-made tanks and uniforms of the Russian ...

  Lubumbashi / AFP Soldiers sealed part of DR Congo’s second city and carried out mass arrests of young men on Thursday, residents said, as talks to defuse the country’s explosive political crisis were set to continue. Protests and deadly clashes have erupted in the vast country over President Joseph Kabila’s refusal to step down at the end of his ...

  Istanbul/ AFP Turkey on Thursday vowed to press on with the fight against “terror”, a day after 14 Turkish soldiers were killed by extremists in an intensifying battle for a flashpoint Syrian town, Ankara’s biggest loss of its Syria campaign so far. The soldiers were killed in a succession of attacks by IS extremists around the town of Al-Bab ...

  Aleppo / AFP German authorities came under fire on Thursday after it emerged that the prime suspect in Berlin’s deadly truck attack, a rejected Tunisian asylum seeker, was known as a potentially dangerous extremist. Prosecutors have issued a Europe-wide wanted notice for 24-year-old Anis Amri, offering a 100,000-euro ($104,000) reward for information leading to his arrest and warning he ...

  London / AFP Populists across Europe have seized on the truck attack in Berlin as a way to criticise Germany’s immigration policy but key players have held back on jumping to conclusions as the investigation continues. Former UK Independence Party (UKIP) leader Nigel Farage, a key ally of US President-elect Donald Trump in Europe, said the attack which killed ...

  Moscow / AFP President Vladimir Putin on Thursday bade farewell to Andrei Karlov at a packed memorial ceremony in Moscow for the diplomat who was assassinated in Turkey by an off-duty policeman. Dozens of colleagues and relatives attended the ceremony for Karlov, the ambassador to Turkey whose death was labelled by Moscow as an act of terror while President ...

  Tokyo / AFP A rapidly-spreading fire engulfed more than 100 buildings and sparked evacuations in a northern Japanese city on Thursday, leaving two people injured and forcing authorities to mobilise the military. Aerial footage broadcast live on Japanese TV showed massive orange flames and thick grey smoke spewing out of buildings throughout much of the day in the city ...

Aleppo / AFP The last residents hoping to leave rebel-held Aleppo waited in the snow on Wednesday as delays hit an evacuation that will leave Syria’s army in full control of the devastated city. An AFP correspondent in the government-held neighbourhood of Ramussa—through which thousands of evacuees have passed in recent days—saw no convoys leaving the last pocket of opposition-controlled ...