Politics

  Ankara / AFP A team of Russian investigators arrived in Ankara on Tuesday to uncover how an off-duty policeman assassinated Moscow’s ambassador in an art gallery, as Turkey made its first arrests over the murder. Veteran diplomat Andrei Karlov was shot four times in the back by Turkish policeman Mevlut Mert Altintas, 22, in a brazen attack as he opened ...

  Hamam al-Alil / AFP Three men set up a fence and a ribbon of yellow and black crime scene tape around a site south of Iraq’s Mosul, marking a mass grave of extremists’ victims. It is one of dozens of such sites discovered in areas around Iraq that have been recaptured from the IS group, whose rule has been defined ...

  Kabul / AFP An American-Canadian couple held hostage by the Taliban have appeared in a video for the first time with their two children born in captivity, pleading with President Barack Obama and President-elect Donald Trump to secure their release. Canadian Joshua Boyle and his American wife Caitlan Coleman had two sons after being kidnapped in Afghanistan in 2012 during ...

  Berlin / AFP Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Tuesday that German authorities believe a deadly rampage by a lorry driver at a Berlin Christmas market was a “terrorist” attack likely committed by an asylum seeker. Police were questioning a suspect, described by media as a 23-year-old man from Pakistan or Afghanistan who had arrived via the so-called Balkan route ...

  Berlin / AFP The bloody carnage at a Berlin Christmas market, with a Pakistani or Afghan asylum-seeker as the chief suspect, immediately emboldened right-wing populist critics of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s liberal refugee policy. Merkel has been under fire over her decision in September last year to let in tens of thousands fleeing war and poverty from mostly war-torn countries ...

  Washington / AFP China has returned a US underwater probe it seized in the South China Sea, the Pentagon confirmed after Beijing’s capture of the craft sparked a dispute between the two powers. The Chinese navy handed over the drone near where it was seized, the Pentagon said, repeating US condemnation of Beijing’s actions in what it says are ...

  Tokyo / AFP Japan’s Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday in favour of the central government in its bid to relocate a US airbase on Okinawa, dealing a significant blow to the plan’s opponents led by the island’s governor. The Japanese and US governments want the base in the middle of a crowded city moved to a sparsely populated area ...

  Aleppo / AFP Several thousand people left the rebel enclave of Aleppo on Monday, raising hope for many others still stranded as Russia eased its objections to sending UN observers to oversee the evacuations. Brokered by rivals Turkey and Russia, the complex deal will eventually see President Bashar al-Assad’s forces exert full control over Syria’s battered second city. Early ...

  Khazir / AFP Mobile phones, cartons of cigarettes and fresh mutton are all on sale inside a camp for Iraqi civilians displaced in the battle to recapture Mosul —if they have the money. In the Khazir camp, buyers trudge in the mud, skidding around in flimsy shoes and examining improvised market stalls on the ground between tents that shelter ...

  Amman / AFP Jordanian police said on Monday they found suicide belts and other explosives in the hideout of suspected IS group extremists behind an attack that killed 10 people, including a Canadian tourist. Another 34 people were wounded in Sunday’s shooting spree, including a second Canadian. Four gunmen were shot dead by police during the course of a ...